Using The Force Made Easy
by Fencer22
Summary: A Jedi youngling decides to seek his future out in the wider galaxy, rather than be shipped off to the agri-corps. Then thumbs his nose at the Jedi Order by posting how to videos about the Force online.
1. Chapter 1

**AN: This is the story of one disenchanted former Jedi and how he manages to cause chaos and change across the whole of the galaxy. I hope you enjoy the ride and please remember to leave comments and follow or favorite the story if you do. :)**

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Looking into the camera I blew out a breath.

"My name is John Kesel. I was eight when I started trying to dig through the archives for lost force techniques. The histories were full of holes, and vague mentions of abilities that showed up nowhere else. Sometimes we could even drag old forgotten legends out of the Masters."

"They all agreed we should be able to do more. But no one alive knew how. Worse no one alive was interested in recreating those abilities. There were other Force sects who supposedly had their own abilities, people capable of things no Jedi could accomplish. But they were not our enemies, and they were not Jedi, so what did their abilities matter?"

"It didn't make any sense." I shook my head trying not to let old frustration bleed into my voice too deeply.

"But the library had no information on the lost Force techniques. Maybe some of the holocrons did, but only the Knights and Masters had access to those. So, there was nothing. No information, no instructors, and no one even trying to find out. It was maddening. How could they not be interested? How could they not want to know?"

"I was ten when I started searching the holonet for anything and everything about Jedi, Sith, the Force, _magic. _I didn't learn much about the abilities that fascinated me, but I learned other things. I learned what the galaxy actually thought of us." And hadn't that been a slap in the face to discover.

"Most of it was good. But not all of it. Some called us kidnappers. And I realized That never having known my parents was strange. Plenty accuse Jedi of being elitists, or Senate lap dogs, or any number of other things."

"My biggest find was a paper written by someone studying to be a psychologist. They claimed Jedi doctrine with regards to emotions and attachments is inherently self destructive. They backed their claim up with numerous studies and facts. There's a link to that paper embedded below the video."

"I was eleven when I realized that even if I wanted to start embracing my emotions and learning to live with them… There was precious little to feel emotional about in the temple to begin with. If I questioned a master or disagreed, I was given a short lecture and told to meditate on it. Which was frustrating, and annoying, but didn't make me angry either. At least not then. Later it would, but it didn't then."

"Some of the girls were cute, but we were all _kids_. Thinking someone's hair or eyes were pretty was a far cry from love. Even then I knew that much." I grinned wryly. It was true. I'd wondered at first how much the difference _really _was, but I'd still known it wasn't the same.

"I turned to fiction. Every day I set aside some of the time meant for meditation to just read. I let myself be swept away. Excitement, sadness, anger, joy, even the barest glimmer of what love really meant to people. I would let the stories sweep me away, and then I would set it aside and meditate. I taught myself to live those emotions and then calm myself back down." I grinned wryly even as a few chuckles slipped out.

"It was poor training for the real world, but it was the best I could do."

"I was twelve when I realized the things I read about would never be allowed for a Jedi. I also realized that my changes were noticeable to the rest of the order. They didn't approve. No Padawan wanted to sit with me. No Master showed any interest in taking me as a Padawan. I had until I was fourteen, _maybe _fifteen, until I would be sent to one of the corps. If that happened, my life would be dedicated to growing food for an order that was rejecting me."

"For the first time in my life I was angry." I blew out a breath in a near hiss.

"One of the Masters noticed and pulled me aside. I explained to him why I was angry. As politely as I could. I kept a firm grip on my emotions so as not to lash out verbally. He told me if I was meant to have a Master the Force would provide one. And if I was not then the Force felt the corps was where I was meant to be. Every word he spoke was calm and empty."

"It was the first time I knew what rage really felt like. They took me from my family before I even knew what that loss truly meant, and now they were starting to decide I wasn't good enough for them. They thought I should just be happy with a life of doing exactly what I was told for no personal gain. It sounded an awful lot like being a comfortable slave, and the Master had the nerve to stand there and tell me if it was my fate, I should be content with it."

"I told him he had the emotional range of a teaspoon, the empathy of a slaver, and the tact of a battle droid." My grin was all teeth. "I threw myself into the simulators. If it had a hyperdrive, I learned how to fly it, and I made sure to have the paperwork to prove I could."

"I was fourteen and a half, roughly, when they came to kick me out of the order. It wasn't even anyone important, just one of the dozens of Masters that worked with the younglings."

I closed my eyes and let the memory sweep me away.

{}{}{}{}

I took a deep breath squared my shoulders and turned to start walking away from the shuttle bays.

"Mister Kesel," _Force, he called me mister, not youngling, mister. _"Where do you think you are going?"

I stopped walking and took a moment to let my emotions run their course. _I'm angry, I'm sad... but I'm not surprised. This won't break me. I won't let it! _I turned on my heel and faced the Master fully again.

"Master, I am returning to my bunk to collect my credentials as a pilot, as well as to pack a few changes of clothes and toiletries."

"That is unnecessary. Your needs will be taken care off once you reach your destination, and the trip is only a day or two." The Master stated with a note of confusion.

I nodded. "And I have no intention of going there. Which is why I will need the spare clothes and the data chip with my flight credentials." I shrugged keeping my face carefully bland even though I wanted to smirk at the look of surprise on the Master's face. "The galaxy always needs pilots after all, and it's a much more appealing career than farming."

With a negligent shrug I turned on my heal and marched off.

{}{}{}{}

Opening my eyes, I shook off the memory, and refocused on the camera in front of me.

"I actually made it out of the temple before anyone thought to confiscate my lightsaber, which was fantastic. Then I found a public library and applied to every local pilot, co-pilot and navigator position I could find. I spent a few hours loitering around bars to snag credits off of drunks with a bit of creative Force grabbing. Pickpocketing is of course illegal, but I needed credits if I wanted to eat, not to mention have a roof over my head while I slept. Part of me marveled at just how quickly I had thrown away my past life and morals in favor of freedom and practicality. But the rest of me just couldn't forget the heartache of _being rejected."_

I scowled for a moment feeling that old wound hurt like new before shaking it off.

"I was determined to find my own way. To do what I had always wanted to; try to learn lost, or just new, Force techniques. If I couldn't be a Jedi, I'd just make my own Force sect. Hell, maybe I'd even give it a silly name and invent a new name for the Force just as one more way to flip the Jedi Order the bird."

I laughed.

"Well that was then, and this is now. I like bouncing around the galaxy too much to slow down and start teaching. But I still want to get my last dig in against those idiot monks." I smirked at the camera. This was it. This was going to drive the old fools absolutely mad, and there wasn't a damn thing they could do about it. I'd plaster this all over the net and if they took it down, I'd just put it right back up.

"Truth be told? The Force is _amazing_. But, if you don't feel like spending most of your life meditating, or fighting for your life with a sword, when everyone around you uses ranged weapons because they aren't idiots… Really the Force is just an interesting hobby, or a cool thing you can use to win bar bets." I affected a disinterested shrug and tried not to break down laughing at the scandalized looks I could clearly imagine the Jedi would make when they heard that.

"A little helpful intuition at the saback table. Guiding a dart to hit just the right spot. Those are just the obvious ones. If you master the basics, then you can get _creative_. I once got five drinks in a row for using a spoon, to launch a knife into the air, before it would come down point first in a piece of fruit." I laughed at the memory. "Gentleman, if you're watching, I promise the next round is on me."

"So! If you'd ever thought you had a bit of Force potential, ever had reactions a bit too quick, or luck a little too good? Here's your first lesson on how to use the Force. Keep an eye out, because I'll be making more soon. For those of you who are interested in more than bar tricks don't get discouraged, those are just the basics." I leaned back and started going through the first simple lesson I'd decided on. Reaching out and feeling the Force.

Outwardly I was calm and serene. Internally I was all but cackling. The various Force sects all thrived on a sense of mystic that set them apart from the rest of the universe. I was going to rip that away and make the Force something anyone with potential could dabble in or commit themselves too without being beholden to some secretive group. It was petty, and spiteful, and I might be paving the way for Force wielding criminals. I was willing to accept that. This was revenge. It was also my attempt to force the Order to change. Maybe it wasn't my place to determine that thousands of years of tradition needed to change. But I'd lived their life, and I'd lived like the rest of the galaxy. Few Jedi could claim that. I had the frame of reference they lacked. Weather I had the _right_ to make the call or not, I was making it.

I couldn't wait to see what happened next.


	2. Chapter 2

"Takobo system flight control, this YT-2000 light freighter Arcane Knowledge, requesting permission to land. I've got a delivery for a settlement called," I double checked the data, I'd read it a dozen times, but I still wasn't sure how to pronounce the name of the place. "Kazim?"

"_Arcane Knowledge, you are clear to land. Proceed on course 15-10, docking bays are on the south side of the town. Forwarding exact coordinates now."_

"Coordinates received." I shut off the coms with a tap and started entering the flight plan into the navigational computer. I could do the whole thing manually, but the computer was more than up to the task. While I liked flying there was a major difference between flying for fun and the boring flying of calmly landing a ship. I'd take over for the final approach, but I didn't feel like micromanaging the next half hour long planetary approach, or the slow in atmo trip to the settlement. Much nicer to sit back and enjoy the view.

{}{}{}{} Planet Surface

The docking representative met me at the bottom of the ramp. The brown skinned Ithorian thankfully had a translator droid with him. Useful buggers, even if they did all sound like pompous twits. Really needed to get back on that project of mixing one with R3. That or pay someone to do it for me. Not until I finished paying off the ship though. Few more trips like this one though, and maybe I could think about it. That or I could finally hire some crew. I could handle flying her on my own but if I got caught up in a fight without a copilot or anyone to work the guns? My only real option would be to run.

"Greetings, Captain Kesel. Jho Shi welcomes you to Takobo, and his hanger. He respectfully requests permission to come aboard and inspect your cargo as per local regulations." The droid explained with at least double the syllables necessary.

"Pleasure to meet you, Jho shi. Come on then, the sooner we get this inspected the sooner we can get it offloaded." I answered with an easy grin. Jho bobbed his head and he and his droid followed me up the ramp. The ship had two cargo holds, located on either side of the engines. Both were filled with neatly stacked crates. My cargo for this trip was primarily ship parts and tools. Kazim wasn't a major shipyard, but they apparently handled most of the maintenance and repair needs for the system.

"I've also got some luxury items stored away in the crew quarters I'm not using, if you think anyone around here would be interested." Jho tilted his head. I figured it was probably a nonverbal way of expressing curiosity. "Alcohol, mostly. I've gotten in the habit of grabbing a case of whatever the local specialty is and carting it around with me. Doesn't always turn an immediate profit, but I seem to always find a curious buyer in the end. Nice little bonus."

Jho turned and talked to his droid who then turned to speak with me. "Jho Shi knows of several local bars that might be willing to buy some of your stock. He also wishes to know if you happen to be carrying any Soum hard cream?"

"Soum hard cream huh?" I scratched the back of my head. "I know I picked some up about a month ago. There was a colony on Orra that made it. Can't remember if I sold the last or not. Give me a second." I started swiping through my secondary cargo list and lit up when I found it. "I've still got six bottles. I could let you have the lot for say, seventy five credits?"

Jho shook his head a bit violently and the droid spoke up to interpret his grunting.

"Jho Shi could not possibly pay seventy five credits for six bottles of a brand of alcohol he has never sampled before. He offers a price of fifty credits."

I placed a hand over my heart in mock offense even as I grinned a bit wider. "Jho, I'm hurt! That you could offer so low a price for such an uncommon spirit! I'll grant you; I don't know how it stacks up against similar drinks, but I can assure you it was the local favorite. How about sixty five credits?"

Jho didn't immediately reject the offer. A few seconds later he started talking again.

"Jho Shi finds that price more reasonable, but would like to counter with an offer of sixty credits, and a personal introduction to the owner of the local bar most likely to be interested in your remaining stock."

I blew out an aggrieved sigh that was completely at odds with the wide grin on my face. "Well I suppose I could let it go for sixty credits and an introduction." I offered the Ithorian my hand to shake, which he gamely accepted. "Let's go find those bottles, then we can see about getting the rest of this unloaded. Should be night by then and you can show me this bartender who you think might buy some of my stock."

{}{}{}{} Next day.

"So, a load of spices, and tea's going to Coruscant?" The green skinned Ithorian nodded. I checked over the data again. "Yeah, I can fit that much. I'm in docking bay twenty three. Just give me a few hours advance warning when you're ready to load it all up, yeah?" Another nod and I headed out into the city.

I'd picked up a few cases of the preferred local spirits, and unloaded a good bit of my stock so that bit of business was taken care of. I had at least a day to kill before the locals finished assembling the order I'd be transporting to Coruscant. I had the day to myself. Prepping the ship for the next delivery would only take a few hours, so I needed something else to do with all my newfound free time.

It had been a week since my first video. And I had been making notes for the next one… Well that would keep me busy. Though before that I should probably post a message about open space on a flight to Coruscant. I had enough space for as many as four passengers, and if I could get more pay for less work? That was all the better.

{}{}{}{} Back on the ship

Rather than sitting on the couch in my quarters like in the previous video I decided to stand in the middle of the now empty cargo room and let R3 record from the wall. There wasn't enough space for something like full kata's, but there was enough space to spread out and move fluidly. It wasn't much but it should be enough to get started.

With a little warble and spin of his green painted head R3 started recording.

I grinned into his camera lens from where I was seated on the floor. "I'm sure that those of you who watched my last video and attempted to meditate on the Force have had very little success so far. Don't let that discourage you. Early training for younglings includes a lot of hand holding where a Jedi Master guides the students minds so we can more easily feel the Force. You don't have that advantage, and that means you'll need patience and persistence. This could take weeks or months depending on how much time you put in and how much natural talent you have."

I rolled my shoulders in a nervous tick as I pooled my thoughts. "Now… A lot of you left comments on my first video to the effect of not everyone being able to use the Force. You said only a few people have that ability."

I shook my head. "That's a myth encouraged and spread by the Jedi council." Surprise you old coots, I _know_. "The Jedi order recruits children who have naturally strong connections to the Force. Such strong natural connections are rare in _most_ species. Some species are more or less inclined to produce strong Force connections. What the order either does not know, does not acknowledge, or actively hides, is that it's possible to strengthen your connection to the Force. So maybe you don't have a strong enough connection to really feel or use the Force. If that's the case that's fine. You just have to find an alternate method of meditation."

"The Matukai are a small group of Force users who have found that using exercise and martial arts as a form of meditation with a focus on your own body can strengthen a being's connection to the Force. In this video I'll walk you through various types of moving meditation, and a few of their ritual chants that they use in their training. I will warn you; this might be a method for those with inherently weak connections to develop their ability to use the Force, but it is not a shortcut. Just like learning any martial art, even basic competence can take months, and true mastery is the journey of a lifetime."

I paused to glare at the camera. Even if my audience weren't any kind of traditional students, I was going to impress on them that this wasn't something for the lazy and undedicated to pursue.

"That being said, the benefits are truly something else. Great gains in speed, strength and endurance. Matukai Masters can fight full out for hours on end without tiring. And yes, gentleman, that endurance can certainly be applied in the bedroom as well." I didn't even try to hide my smirk. Honestly, it was only partially inspired by previous experience. Mostly I was amused at the inevitable reactions from the Jedi when they heard I was promoting the Force as a pathway to better sex.

"Let's start with stretching." I smiled as I started walking my imaginary class through some warm ups. This video might need to be broken up into a few shorter ones, but I had all day to record so I might as well get through all of it.


	3. Chapter 3

{}{}{}{} Jedi Council Chamber. POV Kenobi, age 30, which means Anakin is 14 going on 15. 5 years till episode 2

"Masters." I bowed respectfully.

"Knight Kenobi, Padewon Skywalker." The scowling visage of Mace Windu greeted us while the other Masters remained silent. I could feel Anakin fidgeting to my left. He always seemed a touch nervous in front of the council, and Master Windu's obvious bad mood wasn't helping matters. Actually, most of the Masters were looking rather cross, although several seemed more thoughtful than upset. Grand Master Yoda actually seemed thoughtful, if a touch exasperated.

I was fairly sure that spelled more trouble for our upcoming assignment than Master Windu's temper did.

"Are you aware of the recent videos posted on the holo-net advertising Force training?" Master Windu asked, cutting straight to the point.

"I, no this is the first I've heard of it." I answered. Holonet videos offering to teach people to use the force? It had to be a scam. "Shouldn't this be a matter for a slicer team? Anakin and I aren't really suited to tracking down a scam artist through the darker corners of the holo-net." While Anakin was gifted with physical machines, coding was not among his many talents, and I had never felt the need to learn anything past what was necessary to operate most computers.

Master Windu looked like he had just bitten into something rather tart.

Master Yoda's soft chuckles eased a bit of the tension which was beginning to grow in the room. "Misunderstand, you do. These recordings, genuine they are, and charging for them, the creator is not."

"Whoa." Anakin murmured. I was hard pressed to not make a similarly unimaginative statement.

"... Master's, you mean to tell me that someone is producing genuine tutorial videos on how to use the Force? And posting them on the holonet for anyone to view, free of charge?" There were several grudging nods from around the chamber. "Why?" I didn't even try to keep my incredulity out of my voice.

"Revenge, of a sort." Master Plo Koon gestured towards the center of the room. A small ripple in the Force indicated he had activated some hidden mechanism as a holo projection filled the center of the room. Hanging in the air were two images. One of a young human boy in his mid teens wearing Jedi robes. The other was a young man, likely the same person, perhaps age twenty or so. He was dressed in heavy boots, loose pants, and a zipped jacket that appeared to be made from some kind of leather. The young man had a blaster holstered on his right hip, and unless I was very much mistaken a lightsaber hung from the left side of his belt. While the younger boy seemed rather apathetic, the young man wore a confidant smirk I'd run across too many times on star pilots of all stripes.

"This is former Padawan John Kesel. Current age twenty one, owner and Captain of the light freighter, _Arcane Knowledge_." My nose wrinkled at the name of his ship. For a former Jedi to be making allusions to magic was… distasteful. "The opening statements in his first video make it quite clear he bears a grudge against the Jedi order for attempting to send him to the agri-corps."

"Attempting?" I asked feeling no small amount of trepidation. Another subtle ripple in the Force preceded the hologram flickering off.

"He refused and left the temple. The Master sent to collect him was so startled and confused that he failed to stop Kesel." Master Windu interjected sourly.

"Oh dear."

"Within his rights, he was." Master Yoda spoke soothingly. "Illegal, his actions are not. Nevertheless, problematic they are."

"There have always been those who distrust us and speak against the Jedi order." Ki-Adi-Mundi spoke ponderously as he stroked his beard. "But rarely have those sentiments come from former members. He advocates the study of the Force as a _hobby_." The Master's exasperation was understandable and intense.

Yoda at odds with the rest of the council actually chuckled seemingly finding Kesel's opinion amusing for some reason.

"That's, rather insulting." I admitted. "It takes years, decades really, to accomplish mastery of the Force and he is claiming that people can become so skilled in their free time?"

"Mmm, not entirely wrong, he is. Remember your training Knight Kenobi. Classes you had, on mathematics, politics, language, history, biology, combat, and more. Learning to feel the Force, your whole day, it was not." Yoda calmly stated while pointing at me with his stick. I had to blink several times as I worked my way through that train of thought. "Missions you were sent on. Days, even weeks, there must have been where meditate, you could not?" I nodded slowly. Put in that context I suppose it wasn't impossible for an individual to develop a degree of skill with the Force without dedicating their entire life to the process.

I shook my head. "I'm sorry, this is all interesting, but I still don't see how it is a problem. While the Jedi order doesn't recruit every force sensitive youngling in the galaxy, there cannot be so many out there that this will become a problem, even should all of those with the ability pursue these… lessons."

Master Saesee Tiin leaned forward in his seat and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "The Jedi, order on average, manages to successfully recruit roughly a fourth of the Force sensitives we find."

My mouth went dry. "Oh."

"Even then, some are missed." Yaddle chimed in.

Master Tiin shook his head. "Many parents are unwilling to part with their children, and that is within the galactic core, where we are respected. In the outer rim we have comparatively little power, and any Force sensitives discovered in those regions are often found through blind luck. These holo vids open up potential Force training for all of them."

"More than that." Plo Koon interjected. "Captain Kesel has apparently spent some time among the Matukai. A small light aligned Force sect who have devised a style of training which can strengthen one's connection to the Force. He is spreading their training. He plainly admits it is the work of many months or even years, but with dedication anyone could potentially learn to forge a strong connection to the Force."

"And," Master Windu growled before I could process the implications of that piece of trivia. "if these lessons of his work, parents could truthfully argue that their children don't need our training at all."

"... He's trying to destroy the Jedi order." I spoke in a horrified whisper. Anakin's head snapped around to look at me.

"Mmm." Yoda hummed. "Destroy, I think not, but change?" He trailed off leadingly.

Master Windu sighed but at least dropped his scowl. "Assuming the lessons work, the galaxy won't change overnight. But I wouldn't be surprised if we start to see lower recruitment numbers in a decade or two. If others follow his lead, learning and freely sharing their knowledge, or even start their own groups of Force users... There have always been Force users outside of the order, but this could see us outnumbered by other groups within a few generations."

I looked at master Yoda his earlier words playing over in my mind. "You think he wants to force us to change? To adapt or be left behind?"

The diminutive grandmaster nodded solemnly. "Yes, a challenge this is. Change and grow, or do not and wither. Destroy the Jedi, this could not, see us reduced to a shadow of ourselves? Mmm possible, all to possible."

Master Rancisis slapped a hand against the coils of his lower body. "But change into what?! If we must change to such a degree that we are no longer the same, is that not another kind of destruction? A more pleasant death?"

"That," Master Windu cut in sharply. "is a discussion for another day. John Kesel is on Coruscant, we confirmed it through system control. Your mission is to meet with him and assess him. While he has so far shown a mild disdain for the Jedi Order none of his lessons have demonstrated any Dark Side leaning. But he's released only a handful of lessons so far. Having countless Force users bouncing around the galaxy all on their own personal agenda will be bad enough, but if this is a subtle plot to seed Dark Side users across the galaxy? That is a threat we cannot condone."

Master Yoda jabbed at Anakin and I with his walking stick. "Meet with him, you will. Speak with him, you must. Gain his measure, and report back."

I glanced down at Anakin to find the same uncertainty I felt reflected on his face. I steeled myself regardless and bowed to the council. "We will leave immediately."

{}{}{}{}

Piloting a speeder through Coruscant traffic was never something I had enjoyed. Normally I would let Anakin fly considering his skill and how much he enjoyed it. Given we were listening to Force tutorials as we went though… I felt it was better if I flew us, lest Anakin become distracted behind the controls.

"_Well, it's been two weeks since my last videos, sorry about the delay. You'll all have to bear with me though. Some trips through hyperspace are longer than others, and while I'm thrilled to be bringing you all these lessons, I've still got bills to pay, and jobs to do." _Kesel chuckled lightly. _"Though I have to admit the extra credits I'm getting for the ads they make you sit through are a welcome bonus to my regular income. Thanks for that."_

"_Anyway, it's been a month since my first video went out so some of you overachievers might be getting to the point where you can consistently sense the Force while meditating. If you're not at that point yet you might as well keep listening, you'll need to know this sooner or later."_

"_So, you're starting to feel the currents of the Force."_ Kesel's voice took on a near hypnotic quality._ "The energy flowing through and around you. Relax let it pull your awareness away from yourself. Can you sense the things around you? Objects, people, plants, animals? Feel how the Force flows through them as well. That's the nature of what you are attempting to learn, what you intend to harness. The Force is an energy field that saturates the universe in its entirety, it binds all of us and everything together, makes us each part of an unfathomable greater whole."_

There was a clear intake of breath, followed by a slow release.

"_I've sometimes let hours slip by, just lost in that sensation of being part of a greater whole. This is what the Jedi would call the Light Side of the Force. It's a good way to kill time during long hyperspace trips… It's so _peaceful_." _There was a reverence in his voice that I found myself commiserating with. There was an undeniable peace in allowing yourself to be swept away by the currents of the Force.

"_When you get to the point you can feel that, what you want to do is just focus on it. Keep practicing that meditation. Eventually you will get used to the sensation. You'll find yourself sinking into this state easier and easier. Eventually, you'll find yourself sensing things around you even without meditating. That's what you're striving for. That's the milestone you want to reach. To always have at least some awareness of the Force."_

The video fell silent long enough for me to glance over at Anakin who only shrugged before refocusing on the screen. Finally, an audible sigh played over the speakers.

"_This is where the study of the Force gets complicated. If you are here for some kind of religious reason, or because you're looking for a sense of peace in your life? Then this is really all that you need to learn from me. Being able to sense the universe around you and how you connect to it is as close to a religious experience as I've ever felt in my study of the Force. The Force might push you to do something or go somewhere from time to time, and that's interesting because you suddenly realize there is a part the universe wants you to play, or that it is looking out for you… But even without that, the sense of belonging is amazing."_

I openly smiled at that summary. Perhaps the council was getting worked up over nothing after all. If people only wanted to develop a connection with the force in the pursuit of peace in their lives, I could think of no reason to deny them that comfort. From the corner of my eye I noticed my padawan's uncharacteristically small smile. That kind of quite innocent joy had become less common as he grew up. It was nice to see it again.

"_If you wanted more than that then this is the point where we need to talk about the Force in more detail."_

Then again perhaps the council was right to worry.

"_Let's… Let's put this in terms of archetypes. The two most famous groups of Force users throughout history are the Jedi, and the Sith. There are a few splinter groups, but for now I just want to focus on the Coruscant Jedi. They are an order of monks and nuns. Yes, they are trained in combat and politics, but at their core they are a religious group. How and why they fell into the role of galactic peacekeepers is something I never got a clear answer about. They are taken from their families as infants or toddlers, then raised to follow in their predecessor's footsteps. I'd honestly call it a form of indoctrination. Their entire lives are dedicated to the Jedi order, and to the rest of the galaxy. They take children and _raise them to think and feel a certain way, _then _dictate the course of their lives_." _He emphasized his point. _"There are occasionally people who disagree and break away, like myself, but we are not very common. If it were any other group at all… no one would stand for it. No one would accept it."_

My grip on the speeders controls was a bit tighter than strictly necessary, but I made myself focus on the traffic.

"_The Jedi order justifies this practice because _supposedly_ it's proven the best way to stop people from 'falling to the Dark Side of the Force.' Not that much of the historical data from before the practice was implemented has survived to back up that claim." _The data pads speakers conveyed a disgruntled huff.

"_Which is a pretty good segway into talking about just what the 'Dark Side' of the Force _is. _How to explain this… If I had to define the Light side of the Force, I would define it as the collective _will_ of the universe. Sentient life has advanced so far because we can cooperate. Because we can work together to be greater than the sum of our parts. Much like the Force we are, in a way, united. What harms one system harms us all to an extent. But if the light is our knowledge, our cooperation, our logic… Then the Dark side is our emotions, our individuality, and our willingness to act."_

"_Jedi are trained, conditioned, to not form attachment. To cut themselves off from a great deal of their emotions, to suppress them. It's unhealthy. At best it bottles those emotions up until they eventually explode out, and at worst, and seemingly far more common, it damages their ability to deal with their emotions." _Anakin and I shared confused glances not really sure what to make of that. _"I say that because there is a trend of Jedi who draw on the 'Dark Side' for whatever reason losing all sense, and defecting to the Sith."_

Well… I wasn't exactly a historian, but that did seem to line up with the usual cautionary tales. I certainly couldn't remember many stories of Jedi making use of the Dark Side remaining part of the order.

"_I mentioned the Sith before, records of exactly what they believed are fragmented and incomplete, but from what I do know they were obsessed with trying to take over the galaxy, and preached the use of anger and hatred when channeling the Force in the pursuit of power." _

"_In case any of you at home are getting any ideas? Don't. The Sith were out of their damn minds. They kept trying to take over the galaxy. And for what? Even if you manage to pull it off, you'd spend the rest of your life dodging assassins, filling out never ending paperwork, and dealing with every inter system pissing match that happened to pop up. Why anyone with an ounce of sense would think chaining themselves to that migraine is an accomplishment…"_

Anakin's chuckles mirrored my own grin.

"_And I mean aside from the combat precognition and enhanced physical abilities? Force powers? Not that big a deal." _His voice shifted to something deep and intentionally over dramatic. _"Look upon me insects, I can shoot lightning from my fingers, but a large enough bomb would kill me as surely as it would anyone else! Fear. My. POWA!"_

I didn't bother suppressing my chuckles. Anakin outright _giggled._

"_It's insane," _Kesel's tone returned to its usual irreverent lecturing. "_like a bunch of grown adults dedicated themselves to becoming a cult of creepy goth teens. Force users are pretty hard to kill, powerful ones more so, but we're not invincible. A big enough blast radius, or too much enemy fire to deal with? We go down just like anyone else. And challenging the galaxy to a fight is just asking to get killed sooner or later."_

"Well, at least we know he has _some_ sense."

"Yes, Master." Anakin replied with another half smothered laugh.

"_The thing you have to understand is _why _they acted that way. There are other Dark Side groups out there, but you don't see them launching suicidal crusades. I described the Dark Side as our emotions. I meant that very much literally, it's reaching out to the Force with your emotions, charging it with them, then drawing on that emotionally charged power and using it."_

"Oh, Sith spit." He had just, in very broad terms, explained to all the galaxy how to use the Dark Side of the Force.

"_Most of you are probably thinking to yourselves, ok, so what? Drawing on the Force without emotion or drawing on it with emotion, what's the big deal? The big deal is that the Force doesn't just feed your emotions back to you at a one to one ratio. Put in x emotion get x back. No, it's much more dangerous than that."_

"_Imagine you stubbed your toe on something, it hurts, you're annoyed, maybe even a little angry. You sink that into the Force and then use what you get back to toss whatever you kicked aside. But you're still angry about it, maybe even angrier than when you started. What normally would call for a few curse words now takes you a half hour to calm down from. And the stronger the emotions you use the worse the results. Emotional people don't make the most rational decisions, and the Sith _encouraged_ their members to nurture a mindset that was constantly using anger and hatred to draw on the Force. It's like throwing yourself into a hole just to keep digging deeper. It's self destructive!"_

"_So, the Jedi cut themselves off from living their lives for fear of what their emotions could make them, and the Sith threw themselves into the most violent and destructive emotions like junkies chasing their next high. I don't like either of those options. I'm a sentient being, and that means I am both a logical member of society, and an individual with emotions. I am not one or the other. I am both in balance. I do a job which contributes to society, but it is something I enjoy doing. I enjoy having fun, but I'm responsible enough to temper that pursuit of pleasure with reason."_

In spite of myself I was actually finding this fascinating. It was heresy, but there was a ring of truth in his words. A sense of belief and self assurance. I was nearly certain Kesel had experimented with the Dark Side of the Force, but nothing he was saying sounded like the rantings of someone who had fallen.

"_Using your emotions to draw on the Force is like drinking Alcohol. You have to be aware of what you are drinking, how much you are drinking, and how different drinks affect you. Most importantly you have to know when to cut yourself off and sober up." _

"Interesting metaphor." I muttered. Anakin only hummed back too absorbed in the screen and its lesson to respond.

"_Anger, hatred, negative emotions like that are going to make you want to lash out. And every little slight is going to seem like a good reason to do just that. You pull on that when you're already mad enough to kill someone and you won't be calming down anytime soon. Especially if you get stuck in a loop and keep feeding it back in. If I had to bet, I'd say that's how a fair few people 'fell' as the Jedi would phrase it. But you don't have to use those emotions. Hell, I'd advocate _against_ using them. I tried using love to draw on the Force while tucked in with my ex a couple years back. I was a sappy, clingy, goof, for _three days._" _Kesel's voice was full of resigned amusement.

He hummed thoughtfully. _"Though I wouldn't claim even that is risk free. Imagine what someone who is obsessed could do? Even positive emotions could be twisted by circumstance. If she had been killed while I was essentially doped up on my feelings for her I'm not sure I could have restrained myself from slaughtering whoever was responsible. And maybe that's not so bad, every sentient species has a history of individuals killing for revenge. But then I ask myself if I would have stopped with just the guilty party? As I am normally? Sure. Hopped up on rage and hate I'd likely have drawn on in my grief… I'm less certain. Or what if she had decided to break things off when I was like that? Would I have let her? Or would I have tried to force her to stay? Emotions are not rational, Force enhanced emotions even less so, _be careful_. Don't wallow in any emotion. Just like with anything else in life, feel it, let it play a role in deciding what to do, but don't let it control you."_

It was sobering to hear a warning that actually explained the risks of the Dark Side in detail. My entire life I had been warned away from using the Dark Side of the Force. And here was a detailed explanation of why it was a risk, of how lashing out once in anger could influence someone enough to cause their fall. Of how even an emotion like love could twist someone into a force of evil.

"_This video's run long enough so let's wrap it up. In conclusion, as you learn to sense the Force. Be mindful _not_ to pour whatever you are feeling into the Force. If that sense of peace is all you are looking for then congratulations you've found it. If you plan to make use of the Force as I start explaining Force powers then _be careful_. Experiment with as little emotion as possible. Minor annoyances, slight affection, a bit of amusement. Pay careful attention to how it affects you. Just so you can recognize it. Then make a habit of preventing what you feel from affecting the Force around you. That control, that separation of what you are feeling from how you use the Force is the difference between being in control and losing yourself. Master yourself, and it can't master you. Spending lots of time meditating on the Light Side of the Force is a good way to purge the effects, and help you find and maintain balance."_

"_Remember, the Force isn't your entire life, just an aspect of it. Don't let training take over. Go out with friends, sit down with a book, focus on your job and family. Keep yourselves grounded. I'll get back to you all with another video in a week and a half, maybe two weeks. Until then think about everything I've said. Later."_

For several minutes Anakin and I went with the traffic in silence, thinking over what we had just heard. I was the first to break the silence.

"I think we very much need to meet the Captain."

"Yes, Master." Anakin replied unusually quietly. "Do you think… are we…" He couldn't seem to properly form the questions on his mind.

"I don't know what this means for our mission, Anakin." I wish the council had seen this _before _they assigned us the mission, but considering it only went up an hour ago…" I sighed. "Forward the video to the council, Anakin. I doubt it will change anything though. They'll likely be debating it until long after Kesel has left the planet. Probably until he has posted his next lesson, and that will start the debate all over again."

Anakin wrinkled his nose in minor scowl. "This mission is going to be trouble, Master."

I chuckled lightly at that simple yet accurate evaluation. "I think that may just prove to be an understatement."


	4. Chapter 4

**AN: This is actually a lot of fun to write and its coming to me with a lot less trouble than I would have expected. But that's that new story rush for you I guess. I've had a few errors poited out to me which I need to go back and address. Nothing major yet, just younglings aparently don't get padawan braids. I also need to work on an updte for Archer and I'm thinking of doing some rewrites of Flames before tryingto get that moving again. But Muses are fickle bitches so we'll see what happens. **

**Hope you all enjoy. Read and Review.**

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Two Jedi walk into a bar. Everyone notices immediately because no one else would wear robes into a bar. Despite the fact that I should find that amusing I'm not laughing. I'm not laughing because there are two Jedi in the room with me, and not three hours after I called them out for the whole galaxy to hear. Oh, and I explained how any sociopathic moron with Force potential could become a shadow of their historic enemy. Joy. The only reason I wasn't running for my life was the lack of warning from the force. Whatever they were here for it wasn't to hurt me.

I could try and slip out the back, but I wasn't even certain this bar had a back. You could never tell on this planet. The back of a building could be another street or alley, or it could be a twenty plus story drop to a lower level road. Why anyone thought it was a brilliant idea to turn an entire planet into a city I would never know. A battle seemed unlikely. Retreat wasn't exactly a viable option; they probably knew where I was docked anyway…

"Another round please!" I called out before downing my drink. "I think I'm going to need it." I muttered.

As expected, that drew the attention of not only the bartender, who was very distracting and needed to either lose or close several buttons, but the Jedi as well. The one with the beard slid onto the stool next to mine just as my new drink arrived and the kid who was definitely too young to be here sat on his Master's other side.

"So, the Jedi have taken up drinking since I left the order, huh? And man, you are starting them off young. Still, he looks about the right age to need the talk, and I always thought that was a conversation best had after a few drinks." I quipped.

The bartender laughed, and the kid sputtered. The bearded one quirked his lips in a blink and miss it grin. Better results than expected. "I'll pay for their first drinks, so long as they stay away from the top shelf." I shot the woman a grin as I hitched my thumb towards my unwanted drinking partners. I ignored their orders in favor of sipping my own drink and trying to eak any insights from the Force. As usual all it told me was they weren't a threat. Never did get the hang of looking into the future. Maybe that one crazy sage had the right of it when he suggested taking hallucinogens first?

"John Kesel, but I get the feeling you knew that already."

The man took a slow sip of his drink before answering. "Obi-Wan Kenobi, and my Padawan, Anakin Skywalker."

"Uh huh. You a Master or Knight?"

"Knight, though there has been some talk of my advancement." I only hummed an acknowledgment before sipping at my drink.

After that we settled into silence. It didn't take long to realize that he was waiting for me to speak. Classic, and mildly insulting. If he didn't want to talk, I could just finish my drink, pay and leave... Nah. Sure, that would force him to give up on it, but it wasn't really worth the awkward silence. Besides, I'd still have to talk to him in the end. He'd just hound me all the way back to my ship if I didn't. Could I get a jedi arrested for harassment? I shook my head and jumped in feet first.

"Well, you aren't here to kill me, and I'm pretty sure I haven't broken any laws… pretty sure. Can never be certain when every planet has their own legal system. Had a buddy get arrested for asking a girl on a date once."

That got me raised eyebrows. "Truly?"

"Well, it was more of a drunken proposition of a female officer." I admitted with a shrug. "To be fair though, he only grabbed her breasts because I tripped him." Obi-Wan snorted and the bartender, who was apparently paying attention to our conversation, laughed. I shot her a winning grin and toasted her with a raised glass.

"No, you haven't broken any laws that I'm aware of, just shattered over a thousand generations of tradition." Obi-Wan stated dryly. I perked up at that. The Jedi didn't really have any jokers, but they did turn out a few people who made wonderfully dry cutting remarks.

"Traditions are terribly stuffy things, sometimes it's best to do away with them."

"And sometimes they exist for a reason."

"But after so much time has passed, when memory and records have failed us, who can really say if those traditions truly serve the purpose that made them? Or if they are only carried on by momentum? How can we know if we don't take the chance to try something new?" I grinned into my drink.

"You told the entire galaxy how to access the Dark Side of the Force." Obi-Wan cut right to the heart of the matter, abandoning our game of talk around the issue.

"What else should I have done? Not told them? How would that turn out for them if they lashed out not even knowing the risks? At least I gave them a real explanation instead of endless warnings about the horrors of the Dark Side." I wiggled the fingers of the hand not holding my drink. "Oh they told us what it was, but not until they spent… what? eight or nine years? Filling our heads with warnings about how it would consume us. Do the Jedi even know _how_ it consumes people? If I tried that with a bunch of grown adults someone would decide to play with it, just to see what all the fuss is about. No, if you want to deal with adults you have to treat them like adults. That means giving them all the information they need to make their own decisions."

"... I must admit I'd never heard such a detailed explanation of the risks. Perhaps the Master's or the council are informed of those details…" Obi-Wan trailed off and shook his head. "Regardless, why do any of this in the first place? Even with warnings and explanations some will still Fall and spread chaos and suffering."

I blew out a breath, downed my drink, and signaled for another… I should probably savor it and cut myself off though. Being responsible wasn't much fun, but getting smashed never made things better anyway, and I'd need my wits about me for this.

"Part of it is revenge." I admitted with a careless shrug. "You can't just take responsibility for a kid from before he can form memories, spend a decade telling him he's special, and then expect him to just go along with it when you decide he isn't special enough."

"There's no shame in being a member of the Agricorps." It was a weak defense and we both knew it.

"No shame." I agreed. "No glory. No excitement. No chances to change carriers. No chance to really learn more about the force beyond how to help crops grow. No relationships. No intimacy… Honestly given how much I disagreed with the whole no attachments; emotions are bad nonsense... I suppose it was an excuse to leave as much as the last straw. I'd have probably left the order eventually anyway."

"If you say you would have left eventually anyway, then why seek revenge over it?" Kenobi asked, sounding honestly baffled.

I shot the man an exasperated look. "It's revenge. People generally only try to get revenge when a person or group has hurt them." I told him flatly. "Getting told sorry you just aren't good enough for us because you're thinking for yourself? That _hurt_."

Kenobi looked particularly sour.

"Of course, there are other reasons too." I sipped my freshly poured drink. "Whole Galaxy and there are only a handful of Force sects. And sitting high and mighty above them all are the Jedi. You know how many Force techniques there are beyond the handful the Jedi teach?"

"... I can't say that I do, no."

I grinned. "Neither can I." Anakin leaned around his teacher, no longer pretending that he wasn't paying attention. This had his full interest. "Six years spent bouncing around the galaxy talking to medicine men, witches, historians, and on one lucky occasion, six months spent with an actual Matukai instructor. I still have no idea what the Force is really capable off." I grinned, honest and wide. "I've heard stories of people redirecting blaster bolts, and strengthening common items to the point they can survive sustained blaster fire. Rumors about illusionists, and people who can manipulate light. Legends of Seers who can pierce the veil of time, and historical accounts by the truckload of Sith tossing around lightning like water in the ocean."

I turned to face them head on resting my left elbow on the bar paying no mind to the fact we were the center of attention and everyone was trying to eavesdrop. What did I care? I planned to tell the whole Galaxy all this in more detail at some point. A half empty bar? When everyone but the bar tender was far enough away to only catch a few words? Not a big deal.

"Part of it must boil down to what a person is good at. Natural talent matters, you know? But part of it has to be related to teaching styles and lessons getting passed down and improved on generation after generation. Practice too, that much I'm certain of. There is no other way to explain a bunch of tiny groups in which all their people have the same skills."

I gulped a bit of my drink, then slapped the bar counter with my free hand. "I've been hunting for the secrets of the Force for thirteen years, and I've only scratched the surface! The Jedi know some of what the Force can do. Other groups scattered about know things the Jedi don't. But who's to say that between all the scattered groups we know everything? How much has been lost? How much has never been discovered? And what right do any of those groups have to hoard all that knowledge for themselves?" I leaned forward and fixed Kenobi with a mild glare. "What the hell gives you the right to deny anyone that knowledge, that chance to learn?"

He puffed up in offense. "The fact that without proper guidance they could easily fall to the Dark Side and do untold harm!" Kenobi snapped back.

"So could a Slicer with the right computer virus." I countered flatly. "Or anyone with a good sized ship and the know how to turn an asteroid into a planet killer. Bioweapons are the stuff of nightmares for a damn good reason. Some guy could spend years planting explosives and just set them off one day to kill hundreds, or thousands. There was a lunatic who turned an industrial digger into a tank and leveled a small town a few months back. No Force required for any of those. And let's say you're right. A bunch of idiots ignore the warnings and intentionally launch themselves on killing sprees, just to be contradictory assholes… How long until planetary security and law enforcement recruit or train their own Force users?"

Kenobi froze up.

"As soon as people realize my instructional videos are genuine some military minded individuals are going to start training people. I'd bet plenty will start training before their superiors can even ask. Just for the physical benefits and the ability to dodge blaster fire. In the meantime, I'm sure the Jedi can help out until better systems are in place."

"You fully admit that you started this, knowing it will seed chaos across the galaxy? Have you no remorse for all those this will effect?!"

I didn't answer at first. Hell, part of me didn't want to. I'd debated this with myself round and round, driven myself to drink debating the details. Kenobi was acting like I hadn't. Like I didn't know people were going to get hurt after I let the genie out of the bottle. I knew. I'd done it anyway. Did that make me a terrible person? Or just someone with too much drive for their own good?

"I made my choice. Stopping now would only make things worse. I'd just be leaving who knows how many to stumble along blindly. I'm committed. All I can do is see it through."

He didn't seem to have a response to that which was fine by me. I didn't have anything more to say about it anyway.

"You mentioned balance, in your last video." Anakin's question dragged me out of some particularly dreary thoughts before they could gain momentum. "What did you mean?"

"Balance is balance." I shrugged and with a light mental touch floated a coaster onto one corner and set it to spinning on the bar top. "If I were desperate, it might look something like this. Emotions swirling around me, and only that one centerline holding me steady. Like the eye of a hurricane, calm in the middle of the storm. Feeling all that emotion but refusing to let it influence me. I've had to employ that mentality _once_ when I had the bad luck to be in a town that was getting raided by slavers… And I didn't quite get it right." They both looked at me cautiously. But I was in full lecture mode now, I wasn't going to cut off mid lesson.

"I was terrified, and furious, and desperate. And I fed some of that into the Force and used it because I needed the slavers dead, and I needed them dead _fast. _But at the core I was fighting to keep myself and others alive and free, not to hurt or kill. Emotion and logic, or maybe I should say purpose, fed into the Force _together_. Not just emotion. Like I said, I didn't quite pull it off as intended, and it wasn't safe. It was like being caught at sea in a storm, you have to try and find the smoothest route you can. Don't ride to the top of the big waves or it could flip your boat. Try not to let too many waves crash on the deck or they could sweep you over the side, get out as fast as you can, and when it's all said and done?" The coaster slowed and then rested on an edge rather than a point. "Decompress. Get all the extra water out of the boat, put anything that was tossed about back in place, and repair whatever might have been damaged."

Both Jedi were giving me very scrutinizing looks. But it was Kenobi who spoke up.

"You didn't mention this in your video. You didn't even hint at it. You just told them to experiment with as little emotion as possible."

"Of course. I'm not mentioning that in a training video till they've had time to really digest the risks. I'd be amazed if even a dozen people out there can feel the Force at all yet. I'm not bringing this up anytime soon. Especially not when my only trial run was so dicey." I defended myself. That seemed to actually relax Kenobi a lot, but Anakin still seemed distracted.

"Anyway, after that fight wrapped up and everything that could be taken care of was? I spent a lot of time meditating. Just soaking up as much of that feeling of peace as I could. Purging those negative feelings. Until I was back to that." I pointed back to the coaster. "Logic," The coaster tilted to the right. "and emotion," It tilted to the left. "in balance." It went back to standing vertical on one edge.

Anakin bit his lip and reached forward to push the caster flat. He very pointedly pushed it to the right. "According to the Master's, that should be what balance looks like."

Kenobi looked downright disturbed now, his face actually seemed a bit pale. I got the feeling there was something I was missing here but decided to humor the kid.

"By that same logic," I reached over and flipped the coaster on its other flat. "This would be too. But I wouldn't want that kind of balance. You?"

Anakin shook his head.

"Yeah, if I had to pick an extreme then I'd have to go with the Jedi. But I don't think it has to come down to that. Balance isn't easy, sometimes you're going to lean more one way or the other, but I'd say it's worth it."

Anakin glanced at Kenobi. The kid was still worrying at his lower lip and Kenobi was actually drinking his drink, finally. Then a pair of very nervous sky blue eyes looked me square in the face.

"I think we need to go with you." The teen said with the oddest mix of uncertainty and determination.

There was really only one thing I could say to that.

"Oh hell no."


	5. Chapter 5

**AN: It won't leave me alone! Gah! Ok here. It has five updates now. That's a nice good early milestone. The protagonist is tied into the canon plot now. The ship layout has been described now. I have other fics to work on. I'm off, be back later. Don't own Star Wars. Read and Review. **

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I didn't get far before they caught up with me. Or more accurately before Anakin caught up with me dragging Kenobi along in his wake.

"Captain!"

"Forget it, kid. I am not galivanting around the galaxy with a couple of Jedi. You know how much trouble that would cause me?" I shot over my shoulder before focusing on making my way through the crowds. "Everywhere I go, every corrupt official, smuggler, and general lowlife will be watching me like a hawk! Just waiting for an excuse or imagined conspiracy before they do their best to kill me."

Sure, I kept my nose clean. But that didn't change the nature of spaceports, or the people I had to deal with. Might as well strap a crates worth of thermal detonators to myself and try to hug people. A lot of places just were not squeaky clean and bringing along Jedi was asking to get shot in a dark alleyway.

"Please? This could be unbelievably important."

"Hauling a couple of freeloaders around with me everywhere, just so they can incite a bunch of random criminals to shoot me? Not my definition of important!" I snapped. "And even if you somehow managed to _not_ annoy whatever local criminal element might cross my path, Force users are all trouble magnets. I can't go five planets without something popping up and I go out of my way to avoid trouble! With three of us I'll be lucky not to fly into a civil war!"

There were ten seconds of merciful silence before the kid spoke up again.

"You mean it's not just us?" That innocent question made me want to scream.

"Not making me want to take you with me, kid."

"We could pay for passage! And I'm a pilot, and mechanic! We wouldn't be freeloaders!"

That actually made me hesitate. I could fly the _Arcane Knowledge _on my own. But it wasn't exactly safe if I ran into pirates. I really needed a copilot and some gunners for her to operate at her peak. Even just having one of her turrets manned would be useful.

"I, look, I'm not planning to make any more trips back to Coruscant anytime soon. This could be one heck of a long haul you're signing yourself up for." I tried to make coming with me as unappealing as possible. Then paused as a thought occurred to me and turned to face Kenobi. "And why are you letting him try to convince me? I'm a filthy heretic, and he's your impressionable young student! You're supposed to be grabbing him by the scruff of the neck and running before I corrupt him!" I accused, trying to ignore that I was a little tempted. I was sick of flying by myself. It got lonely. I could probably dress them up like spacers and get the locals to ignore them. And now there was a vague sense of encouragement emanating from the Force… That more than anything told me they would be trouble.

Kenobi in contrast to what I expected actually seemed to be contemplating Anakin's idea. "You're not wrong." He admitted as he stroked his beard. "But we were ordered by the council to observe you, and I can think of no better way to follow that order."

"See? It's perfect." Anakin chirped. Fucking imp.

"No it is not perfect." I growled. "And I don't answer to the Jedi council. Helping you two follow your orders isn't an incentive for me at all."

"Perhaps not, but unless you already have a crew you might want to consider taking us regardless." Kenobi's mild smirk was actually a little worrying.

"Why?" I asked cautiously.

"Because if the Jedi have discovered your videos then it is only a matter of time until major criminal groups do the same." He answered serenely. "And when they discover there is a lone Force user loose in the galaxy you will no doubt become a very tempting target." That little nudge from the Force got a bit more insistent.

I didn't say a word. He wasn't wrong. I knew it was a risk. I knew it would come up sooner or later, but finding back up that would stick around in spite of that kind of risk? Not easy. I'd had some, but we went our separate ways when I bought my own ship. Most people didn't want that much excitement in their lives. Worse, someone who didn't think I was worth risking their neck over might just turn me in for a share of any bounty. But it hadn't been that long yet. There was no proof to back my claims so I likely had some time still before it became an issue. But enough time to find people that were trustworthy?

I groaned aloud knowing no matter what I said next I was likely to regret it. "The kid's a pilot _and _a mechanic?" I asked skeptically.

Kenobi's smirk was downright annoying. "He is very talented."

"Uh huh. Any chance you can work a quad laser turret?"

"I haven't fired one before, but I have worked similar laser turrets on a few occasions."

"I'm going to regret this. I know I'm going to regret it…" I looked imploringly to the heavens wishing for a trio of wookies who owed me life debts. No hyper competent furry alternative fell from the sky. Which was just as well because they would probably have crushed me. "Fine." That little nudge from the Force was replaced by a sense of approval that made me want to curse. "I've got an off world charter leaving in two days. You've got that long to find clothes that don't scream Jedi. In the meantime," I glanced at the kid. "you know anything about droids? I want to make my R3 double as an interpreter."

Anakin's face lit up. "I built my own protocol droid when I was nine!"

"... Of course, you did." This was the Force's fault. I didn't know why it was doing this to me, or what the end goal was, but I knew it would be troublesome. Worse, I'd been able to sell off all of my alcoholic stock so my ship was currently dry.

{}{}{}{}

My new copilot/mechanic was warming up the engines, and my new chef/gunner was getting an early start on the evening meal. Both managed to successfully find clothes that made them look like not Jedi. I did need to help them with finding out of sight spots for their lightsabers. Letting them hang off their belts would have defeated the purpose of getting them new clothes. Thankfully it was pretty easy to add custom pockets to the inside of their jackets. Not perfect, but better than nothing.

"Ladies." I greeted with my most professional smile. "Welcome aboard the _Arcane Knowledge._" The group of six young women tittered and followed me up the ramp.

I very firmly reminded myself that getting romantically involved with passengers was a terrible idea, no matter how attractive they were.

"We've got a room set up on either side of the engines, three beds to a room."

The cargo holds were pretty easy to convert. Just had to mag lock a few bunks to the floor. The ship wasn't big enough to have a lot of creature comforts, but there was plenty of space for passengers. Since Anakin and Obi-Wan had elected to share a room I could reasonably have fit two more people in the empty crew cabin. But I wasn't about to complain, I was lucky enough to have found a group of six.

Walking clockwise around the central hub of the ship I gave the ladies their tour. "First door on your right is one of the cabin's we've set up for you ladies." Opening the door showed an almost triangular room with a curved back wall. Not the most conventional cabin but plenty of room for three beds and some luggage. I paused the tour as several of my passengers stopped to deposit their things.

"The next door over is supplies, food, water, cleaning products and a few other things." I waved them along without opening the door. The room actually took up a good chunk of the unnecessary open space around the engines. It left me enough room to get at everything, and space for storage lockers for spare parts though. "Third door is to the engine room which is, of course, off limits. Nothing personal ladies." I gave my best disarming smile. "Followed by our second cabin." There was another delay as the second half of the group put away their belongings.

"That leads to the airlock, so we shouldn't need to worry about it this trip." I pointed at the nearly a blast door as we went by. "Followed by the all important fresher, and then my cabin." My room wasn't any bigger than the other crew rooms, but it didn't have bunked beds and, and if nothing else, it was right next to the fresher. Not the best benefits, but it was something.

Continuing along I pointed at the ladder nested in the central hub. "That leads to the ships laser turrets which are off limits. Opposite that is the corridor leading to the cockpit. While I have to ask that you stay out of the cockpit itself you are welcome to use the room before it." I explained leading them inside. On the right was a large couch taking up the entire wall and on the left was the majority of the ship's Computer. "Please don't touch any of that," I waved at the computers, "but the ship has a stored selection of vids it can play on the main screen, and it responds to voice requests." The woman nodded appreciatively before I led them back out into the ship's circular corridor.

"The last two doors are crew cabins, and then we are back to the loading ramp." I waved at the ship's second almost a blast door before turning to the ship's central hub. "Which just leaves the mess hall." I stepped to the side allowing the ladies a chance to glance inside. "As you can see it's a bit cramped so by all means feel free to take your meals in your rooms or on the couch by the cockpit. Whatever's comfortable for you. Now if you'll excuse me ladies I need to go and see about getting us off the ground.

Hmm, was it bad of me to leave a Jedi Knight at the mercy of six giggly young women… Eh, he'd agreed to play cook. They'd be able to find him whenever they liked regardless. Might as well throw him into the deep end.

The cockpit had a straightforward design. The front chair was the pilots. The copilot's chair was right behind it. There was an aisle on either side of the seats to move in, and that was it. Nice and simple. No extra seats for back seat fliers, and nothing was out of reach. Nice and simple.

"We ready to go, Anakin?"

"Yup." The halfhearted response made my lips twitch. Anakin really wanted to fly. I could relate, but I'd made it very clear the _Arcane Knowledge_ was _my_ ship, and I wasn't about to let anyone fly her without proving themselves. What I hadn't mentioned was that proving himself meant getting her off the planet and into hyperspace while I double checked his every move from the pilot's seat. He had the qualifications, but I wouldn't be happy until I saw him fly first hand. He was part of my crew now, and I needed to know what he could do. If he screwed up at all I'd be taking back control and he'd find himself spending the rest of the trip doing practice maneuvers in simulation.

"Alright then, Anakin. Take her up, nice and easy."

"Wait, really!"

I looked over my shoulder at the excited teen. "Yup." I popped the p. "But if I even think you're messing up... I'm taking back control, and you won't get another shot anytime soon. So, you better be sure."

Well, what do you know? The kid already had the cocky pilot's grin down flat.


	6. Chapter 6

**AN: Just can't seem to tear myself away from this story, and damn it all if it isn't just flowing onto the freaking page. Hope you all enjoy this is... I've been wanting to write some version of the last scene for years now because it just seemed kind of hilarious from an outside point of view and I've _never_ seen it done before. Never had an excuse before today so I guess I'll just have to see what the response is.**

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"Is there any particular reason you two insist on spending so much of your time here in the cockpit." Obi-Wan's dry voice tugged me out of my meditation.

I grinned and stretched. The faint thread of annoyed, exasperated, exhausted emanating from him told me everything I needed to know. It only took four days for a group of giggly singles to frazzle the nerves of one of the vaunted Jedi. He wasn't pushing those emotions into the Force it was just something I'd learned to pick up when sensing people.

"As the Captain it is my solemn duty to make our passengers feel safe and secure. Seeing me lounging around would send the message that I don't take my responsibilities seriously." I lied through my teeth with a merry grin. "Spending most of my time here, sends the message that they are in competent hands."

"They kept giggling and cooing at me." Anakin grumbled. I leaned back in my chair to stare at him upside down.

"Anakin, the next time someone provides a ready made excuse for you; go along with it." The poor kid flushed as he recognized his fumble. Not that I blamed him for hiding out in here with me when our shifts overlapped. Poor guy was hitting puberty, having a bunch of beautiful women giggle and coo at him had to be incredibly emasculating.

Really there wasn't anything to do but watch hyperspace go by. We kept busy by running flight simulations, meditating, and swapping a few stories. I still didn't believe him about the mentally challenged Gungan being made general.

Turning sideways in my seat I gave Obi-Wan my full attention. "If they're driving you up the wall you could load a combat simulation in the turrets, get a feel for the guns. Might also use doing that as a good excuse to catch a few hours of meditation." I didn't bother pointing out that being seen as a man of action who was keeping sharp would likely make them _more_ interested. Let him figure it out on his own.

Just the suggestion of meditating seemed to take some of the weight off of his shoulders. "I think I may. Thank you. I hadn't considered the possibility. I'm just feeling a bit cramped." Anakin nodding his head added extra weight to the man's opinion.

I rolled my shoulder working out a minor knot that developed from sitting for so long.

"Can't really say I blame you." I patted my chair fondly as I stood up to better stretch out. "_Knowledge _is a great ship, but I set her up for hauling cargo. Just four people is enough to make her feel full, and we've got nine."

"So why are we doing a charter flight?" Anakin asked.

"Because Coruscant is a trap for freighter pilots. It takes several armadas to keep that poorly thought out vanity project of a planet fed and not drowning in its own shit." Anakin looked confused but Obi-Wan was nodding.

"Long term round trip contracts?"

I grunted. "Yeah. Haul food to Coruscant, haul sapient waste to farming planets for fertilizer. Pay is mediocre, never mind that it's the only thing keeping the planet alive, and they try to trap you with multi-year contracts. I might take an occasional special delivery there, but get stuck in a loop like that? Never."

"You really don't like Coruscant, do you?" Anakin asked.

"I don't even like regular cities." I admitted. "But Coruscant is worse. The undercity is like Kashyyyk plus gangs, and everyone pretends it doesn't exist. The whole planet would die in a month without outside assistance. Worst of all it's the highest concentration of politicians in the galaxy."

Obi-Wan chuckled at my last point. "Back to the topic of our passengers. I would have expected someone who decries the order's stance on intimacy to take greater interest in their interest."

I grunted and dropped back into my seat not looking at Kenobi or his suddenly very attentive Padawan. "Fucking passengers is a bad idea." I hoped that being crude would put him off of the conversation.

"How so?" Of course not. Damn monks and their damn celibacy leaving them clueless and nosey.

"Bunch of rich girls on vacation looking for a passionate fling with a space faring rogue, just like in their favorite romance novel?" I grunted and ran a system check just for something to do with my hands. "Maybe they get their night of fun and are happy with it. Or maybe they decide it means they've got a chance of convincing me to settle down. Or maybe their friends get jealous and then we end up with our passengers at each other's throats." I shook my head. "If one of them came and knocked on my door the last night of the trip, or if they tracked me down before we left the planet... Otherwise? I don't need that kind of drama."

I sunk a little deeper into the Force to get a sense of my new crew's reactions. Anakin was more than a little distracted by the subject matter, but seemed honestly thoughtful. Obi-Wan was a little muddled. I got the impression he appreciated I wasn't some senseless skirt chaser, though I was pretty sure he objected to me being open to their advances at all. Honestly, I'd rather have a real relationship, but jumping around the galaxy… well it was part of the lifestyle. I could take what I could get, or go without.

With a groan I leveraged myself out of my seat.

"Go grab some privacy in one of the turrets. I need to burn some energy. Running laps should give them something else to giggle at for a while." Throwing fuel on the fire might not be my best idea, but I wasn't going to spend the whole trip in the cockpit. "Anakin, if you want to get out of that chair later you can use the same excuse of practicing with the turrets."

"Just a different chair." He grumbled.

"You could also hide out in the engine room, or your cabin. I've got plenty of stories and shows on the ship's computer. Grab a data pad and relax."

He hummed an agreeable note before pulling up another combat simulation on his console. Shaking my head, I followed Obi-Wan out into the rest of the ship.

{}{}{}{}

Three hours later and Force enhanced muscles were starting to flag, my stomach was starting to rumble, and my nose was starting to complain. I hit the fresher and then the pantry for a bag of dehydrated citrus fruits before moving to reclaim my seat.

"You know if you eat that you'll ruin your appetite." Kenobi's voice called from the galley as I passed.

"That's the idea, mother." I called back over my shoulder. "With your cooking it's a miracle our lovely passengers haven't demanded a refund."

"Ha, Ha." Was Kenobi's deadpan retort. His cooking was alright. But It wasn't anything amazing either. I'd grab my dinner later, but right now I wanted a snack to hold me over.

"Hey, Anakin. Want some?" The startled teen yelped and jumped in his seat almost dropping the data pad he was reading from. I raised an eyebrow at his sheepish grin and shook the bag of dried fruit in front of him. Gamely he grabbed a few pieces for himself.

I very pointedly did not think about what he might have been looking at to prompt that sort of reaction. I instead reran some standard checks while I munched on my snack. It was ten minutes of silence before Anakin spoke up.

"John?"

"Yeah." I mumbled around a yellow ring of fruit.

"If I had, uh questions, about um…"

I bounced my forehead off of the console. "They never gave you the talk, did they?"

"Uhm, they gave us _a _talk? But it was uh…"

"No, no, I remember that talk. Bare minimum explanation of what's physically involved? You cannot be blamed for your hormones, but you are Jedi, you are above such things?"

"... yes?"

"Damn your master, and the Order in general…" I contemplated the merits of having him ask Kenobi, of sending him to a whore, and of just letting him draw conclusions from whatever he'd been reading when I came in. Kenobi being a celibate monk disqualified him. Being underage, sending him to a whore was out, and would give him entirely the wrong idea about romance. Aaand whatever he was reading was either shameless porn, or porn pretending to be a romance novel. Never should have bought that bulk deal entertainment download. Sure, it had a bunch of classics and generic crap, but the "little bit of everything" the salesperson pitched included a lot more smut than I'd bargained for.

With a long suffering groan, I gave in to the inevitable. "Fine. Later though. We'll ditch Obi-Wan after we land and I'll give you the drugs and alcohol talk while I'm at it. I wasn't kidding when I said it was best to have that talk after a couple drinks. Damn Coruscant, buying up my entire stock." I grumbled and put more energy into chewing than was strictly necessary.

"...Thanks."

"Don't mention it. Ever. You need to know this shit, and somehow,_ I'm _the best option available. In the meantime, don't take whatever you're reading as realistic."

He stammered some sort of denial, mumbled an incoherent excuse, and took off… right into the room where at least three pretty young women were watching a romantic comedy. I shook my head and leaned back into my seat. With any luck I could catch a short nap before someone came calling about dinner.

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Knocking on the fresher door came just as I was finishing brushing my teeth.

"Just a second!"

Opening the door, I was only a little surprised to find the blonde named Sela standing outside in some rather suggestive sleepwear. They always seemed to wait till the last couple nights to work up their nerve. Unless they were the kind to ask the on the first couple nights of a trip. Still, best not to presume.

"Sela, all yours."

"I actually already used the fresher this evening, Captain." She stepped in closer. "I was hoping you could help me with something else?"

Yup. Always the last night.

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I smirked as Sela's shapely backside swayed down my boarding ramp, a smirk which only grew when she turned back to give me one last smile before she exited the docking bay. Stretching my arms up over my head I turned and headed back into the ship.

Settling in at the mess's tiny table with a cup of tea I was met by a stern faced Obi-Wan.

"The entire Galaxy opened up to Force instruction… and you are the role model to which they will all aspire."

I let the contempt wash over me. I was in too good a mood this morning, or early evening by local time zone, to let him guilt trip me for giving a lady _exactly_ what she wanted. Scratch that. He couldn't guilt me about that no matter what mood I was in.

"You know if you and Anakin weren't sharing a cabin you might have gotten your own visitor?" I savored my drink and Obi-Wan's sputtering. "Kira really had her eye on you, not sure if it was the beard or if she had a thing for older gentlemen."

"I am a Jedi Knight!"

"You're missing out." I countered glibly.

"Do you have no regard whatsoever for the position you are in?" He demanded. "Countless potential Force users are, or will be, learning from you. They will be modeling themselves after you. The image you give them to follow could be the difference between the Dark or the Light sweeping across the galaxy!"

I took a slow sip as I raised a single eyebrow.

"Feel better with that out of your system?"

"Do not try to deflect me, captain. This is a serious concern!"

With a sigh I placed my cup on the table. "Look, some of them might emulate me to one degree or another, but any adults? They've already developed into more or less the people they want to be. The teens and kids? They've got families and other role models. I might have an impact, but I'm not going to be the only guiding star they base their lives on."

That caught Kenobi flatfooted for all of a second before he nodded incorporating that into whatever worst case scenario he had been building in his mind.

"Beyond that my private life has nothing to do with the impression of me they'll get from a bunch of lectures given over the holonet." And yet this line of thought gave me an idea about how to keep him off my back while Anakin and I had a conversation we were going to hate.

"Look. You're concerned that mine is the only opinion these people are going to have as they learn to use the Force, right? So why don't you make a video? An inside perspective on the Jedi order."

"Well, I don't, I'm not sure that the Master's would approve." He deflected

"So talk it over with them. Give them a call. But first… Hey, R3!"

There was a slight delay before the little green and white droid rolled into the mess.

"Yes, boss!" The chirpy female voice that Anakin had found for my droid just drove home how hard puberty was hitting him. And no, the fact R3 liked her new voice did not make it better. At least she didn't sound like a protocol droid.

"Start up a recording, would you?"

"Yes, boss!" Her head spun a little to center on me as I slid over to sit next to Obi-Wan. "Action!"

"Hello again to all of you! I had something else planned, but considering most of you are probably still learning to sense the Force without an hour of meditation this shouldn't really slow down your progress. Please say hello to Jedi Knight Obi-Wan Kenobi. He and his Padawan tracked me down, and essentially invited themselves onto my crew for a while. Against my better judgment I agreed to take them on. We'll see how that turns out. More importantly to all of you my new morality officer feels that I'm not the best influence on impressionable new Force users. I disagree, but I'm in a good enough mood to humor him."

"So," I clapped my hands in front of myself. "Assuming he gets permission from the Jedi order he'll be giving you an insiders perspective on them. I've got issues with them, but there's no reason you all can't form your own opinions based on different perspectives."

Turning away from R3 I faced Obi-Wan.

"Try to keep the video under an hour, keep your audience in mind, and if you need help editing R3 is pretty good at it." The little droid reverted to electronic beeps that sounded just as cheerful as her new voice. "Aaaand cut." Downing my tea, I got moving before Obi-Wan snapped out of his surprise.

"Come on Anakin! We've got business to take care off!"

"Coming!"

We were out of the ship before Obi-Wan got his head around the concept of being responsible for trying to win over a bunch of nascent Force users to the Jedi's way of thinking.

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I poured Anakin and I each two shots worth of the local specialty. Finding and out of the way bar where I could slip some of the bottle I'd ordered into his glass had taken a bit. I'd been damn serious when I said this was best done with alcohol on hand.

"Right let's start with the easy shit while you sip on that. Alcohol is a drug, and a poison." Anakin eyed his glass like it might bite him but I just nudged it towards him till he took a sip and grimaced at the burn. "It's a good way to relax, and in moderation it won't do much harm, but the key word there is moderation. Me? Two or three drinks is all it takes to loosen up. More than that?" I held out my hand and tilted it side to side. "Sometimes, but I don't like to leave myself too impaired."

Anakin tilted his head obviously working through that before nodding and taking another cautious sip.

"Drugs in general are more dangerous because a lot of them are addictive." I glared at the kid. "Leave that shit alone. They'll suck in the unsuspecting or the desperate who just want to feel good... and then sooner or later they take over and that's it. Though I'm sure you saw some of that on Tatooine?"

Anakin grimaced. "Spice addicts. The hutts liked to sell it... It wasn't pretty."

I nodded and took a sip of my drink. "Then I don't think I need to say anything else on the subject. Which leaves us with what you really wanted to ask about."

Anakin flushed and gulped some of his drink on reflex. Not the best call considering he started coughing. I laughed and took another sip of my own drink before I started talking.

"Alright so first big question. Do you like girls, guys or both? Not judging, just need to know."

"Girls." he muttered. No surprise there, but it never hurts to double check.

"Best way I've ever heard it explained is that most species females have three holes, and most species guys have three things they can put in said holes." Anakin's face lit up in a brilliant red, and we were only just getting started. "Most people have issues with a few of those combinations. And there are a few extra options girls have, hands, breasts, but those are the basics. Assuming no one brings any toys to the party."

Anakin sunk into his chair as if he hoped it would swallow him whole. With a bit of alcohol in me this was actually proving a little amusing. Especially because the kid had done this to himself when he asked. I drummed my fingers on the tabletop trying to get my thoughts in order.

"At your age, you shouldn't be thinking about that though." He blinked and sat up a little straighter in his chair. "Well, no, that's not quite right. You're almost fifteen, hormones are going to make sure you're thinking about it." I shrugged. "But if you find a girl to go on a date with at your age, you're not going to get laid. Probably be lucky to even get a kiss." I teased. "When you get older, don't rush your relationships. Just let them develop naturally."

Significantly calmer now, Anakin was actually looking curious.

"Now, I have no idea how Obi-Wan would react to you going on a date, but you've got some room to get around him and meet girls right now so pay attention. First rule of dating is that no means no, in any context… Ok there's one exception, but don't worry about that." He looked confused, but nodded along. So nice of the Jedi to train kids to never question things. Especially because I was _not _explaining kinks to him. He could damn well trawl the holonet for trashy fantasy fulfillment stories written by sexually frustrated perverts if he really wanted to know.

"Let's see, general stuff, general stuff… Dating outside your species is fine, no matter what the xenophobes say. A person's character is more important than species, and there are always orphans in need of a loving home so being able to have kids isn't a huge issue. You're going to make mistakes. Best thing you can do is learn from them and move on. Don't pressure girls to do anything they aren't comfortable with… Uh, oh. Much as I hate to sound like the order, don't get too attached to anyone you know you aren't going to see again." Anakin gave me a confused look at that. To which I could only shrug.

"Have fun, make some memories, but keep in mind that knowing someone a few days or weeks isn't really enough to decide if you should spend the rest of your life together. Especially not at your age. With how I bounce around…" I shrugged. "Not a good environment for a teenager trying to wrap their head around dating. Hell, it's not a good environment for _anyone_ who wants to date." He frowned, but made some kind of agreeing grunt.

"What else, what else… there is no such thing as an average dick size, so whatever you've got be happy with it." Anakin choked on nothing. "When you are old enough for sex remember to always use protection… Romance novels, or vids, porn, erotic novels, all that crap? None of those are realistic examples of sex or romance. All of that shit is made to appeal to an audience, so don't take any of it at face value. Masturbation isn't some kind of crime no matter what the order told you. But I swear if you leave sticky stains anywhere on my ship, I'll make you wash the entire ship with bleach." I trailed off trying to think of anything else. "I think that's the major points."

I downed the last of my drink.

"Questions?"

Anakin was once again flushed red and shook his head.

"Fantastic. If that changes, talk to me again. Otherwise? Finish your drink and let's get the hell out of here. I'm way too young to be giving anyone this talk."

Hopefully I could just put this out of my mind and forget the conversation ever happened. Fucking hell, corrupting the younger generation was supposed to fun not awkward.


	7. Chapter 7

**AN: I'd just like to recommend the videos Forks Over Knives, Cowspiracy, and What the Health. I watched them, and found them informative. That's all I'm going to say on the matter.**

**That's a recommendation. You're here for my story. So, let's get on with the story.**

**The brief video snippet of Obi-Wan talking was contributed by Lagrange from Sufficient Velocity. I liked it, and decided to roll with it. After all I do encourage audience participation.**

**Made up statistics are made up! I didn't have any luck finding mass killer/family killer versus population statistics so I ended up inventing my own. If anyone can find actual stats, I'll adjust the chapter, but otherwise just roll with it being significantly less than 1%.**

* * *

I loaded up the video Obi-Wan had recorded. R3 had the good sense not to upload it until I reviewed it, and I didn't see any point in putting it off.

_"The Force is an amazing, wondrous thing. Mastering it is the work of a lifetime, and those who devote their lives to it have achieved some of the most incredible feats of bravery and heroism in galactic history. They've also caused and committed the greatest atrocities." _Obi-Wan's image spoke with solemnly.

_"Before you commit to following the Captain's videos, I implore you to step back and think of what becoming a Force wielder will actually mean for yourself, and for those around you. For a time, it may seem like you're just learning a fancy new magic trick to show off at the bar. Right up until you have that One Bad Day. Then, rather than having to patch a whole in a wall, or apologize for a few angry words, you may wake up to realize you've just slaughtered everyone you know."_

_"The teachings of the Jedi Order have been refined for countless generations, and our philosophies and practices are focused on avoiding that. While our tenants are not easy to follow, they are the best way we know of to safely use the Force for the good of all sentient beings."_

_"Learning to use the force will probably make your life worse, in the long run. If you've spent your entire life learning to control yourself, your emotions, and your thoughts, then you just might be able to avoid a horrible fate. Otherwise? Force users who fall to the Dark Side have depopulated entire planets. They've killed their own loved ones and destroyed organizations they spent their entire lives building. They've even killed themselves by destroying their own starship in a fit of mindless rage."_

_" So please, don't embark on this journey casually. You aren't picking up a new hobby. You're picking up the most dangerous and powerful skill in the galaxy."_

Pausing the video, I pinched the bridge of my nose and growled under my breath. I couldn't upload this. It would scare off every kind hearted sapient and encourage the reckless, the violent, and the crazies. Granted those people would abuse it regardless, but the whole point of this was to spread knowledge of and the ability to use the Force. Letting him chase off the people least likely to abuse it? No way. Now I needed to deal with this or kick the man off of my ship.

I needed to do some serious research before beating statistics into his head. The hardest part would be making the man understand that Force users, are in fact, just people. With all the good and bad that implied.

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"You know when I told you that you could record a video about the Jedi order I did not mean that you could spend a half hour sharing horror stories in a poorly thought out attempt to scare a bunch of people away from using the Force." I glared at Obi-Wan.

"I simply thought my time would be best spent warning them of the risks of learning to use the Force." His response could have almost been serene, but I doubted serenity normally came with fangs.

"By scaring off every decent person watching that lacks a poodoo detector, and encouraging any lunatic who wants to go out in a blaze of glory." I deadpanned. It wasn't much but Obi-Wan twitched, "Luckily R3 ran the video by me before posting it so it's not out there encouraging the crazies. Seriously, depopulating planets? What were you thinking? That takes planet killers, or an army. Unless you think a lone Force user can just reach out and drag a planet's moon down?"

I passed him a datapad with a list of names on it.

"That's every being in the past five years who committed a mass killing or annihilated their family. You talked about having one bad day? That's the galactic list of people who had that one bad day."

It wasn't pretty to think about. Hell, the list was fucking long and if I actually stopped to read them all I'd probably crawl into a bottle for a couple days before pretending I'd never looked at any of it. Obi-Wan's appalled look told me he'd likely react in a similar manner.

"And you want to give Force training to all of these people?" He tossed the datapad onto the table in disgust, "You are proving my point Captain."

"There are something like a hundred thousand names on that list." I ignored his comment, "There are something like one hundred quadrillion sentients in the Republic. It's a drop in the bucket. Callus as that may be to say, it's the truth."

"That does not justify arming these people with the Force. That temptation can only increase the likelihood of such incidents exponentially. And it makes every one of them much more dangerous."

"There are only about, what ten thousand Jedi? Maybe fifteen if you count all the corps as full Jedi?"

Obi-Wan eyed me carefully at the apparent non sequitur. "That sounds about right, yes, what's your point?"

"I'd be interested to check Jedi numbers against the number of members who either Fell, or at least dabbled in the Dark Side of the Force. Be interesting to see how the statistics line up." I shrugged, "Not really conclusive though considering that these people didn't actually have _one bad day._ As you so eloquently put it." Calling the data pad to me with the Force I closed out the list of names and pulled up something like twenty different articles on the subject of the mentality of mass killers and people who killed their own families. Handing it back I gave him the cliff notes version knowing he would go on to read them all later, and likely research further.

"Discounting the zealots who commit their crimes in the name of some cause, ideal or religion, and the mentally ill, you're left with people who just couldn't cope any more. People that life isolates then spends months or years shitting on, people who just can't catch a break. And where a lot of people accept that life just isn't fair, or as some people blame themselves? These are people who blame everyone else for their problems. Then they lash out at whatever person or group they believe is responsible. It's not one bad day, it's hundreds, or thousands, of bad days. One after another, grinding a person down to the point they just can't _cope _anymore."

Obi-Wan didn't say anything, eyes already roaming over the first article.

"I'll grant you the Jedi probably do have much lower rates than the rest of the galaxy when it comes to snapping like that. But every Jedi is part of a group which actively watches for bad situations like this, and acts as a support group for their members. You also generally don't have the same stressors. You don't have to worry about where your next meal is going to come from, or if you can afford to keep a roof over your families heads, you never have to worry about losing your job, or a spouse leaving you."

I spread my hands wide.

"Sometimes life sucks, and people can't handle it. That's not limited to Force users. And I'd be pretty surprised if the Force actually made it any more likely."

"And what about people who are abusive?" Obi-Wan countered. Not conceding the point, just setting it aside to try a different approach, "The ones who enjoy feeling powerful, who take pleasure in others' pain?" I ignored the obvious joke about how they needed to keep it in the bedroom. This was serious, and it deserved to be treated as such.

"Then I'd say they've already fallen. Look, I know there are going to be people who abuse this, just like there are people who abuse blasters. But I think there will be a lot of people who put it to good use, or no use at all. I'm a Force user, and aside from those times trouble comes looking for me? I only use the Force to try and figure out what it's capable of. What I'm capable of."

"And people could twist your teachings to do unspeakable harm."

"Let them, they twist everything else out there to do harm anyway, one more option won't be the end of the universe. Besides, it's not like I'm giving them combat training."

That drew Obi-Wan up short. And he looked at me questioningly. I shrugged.

"I'm offering instructional videos on the Force. Not combat. No lightsaber forms, or even how to build a lightsaber, not that most could afford a crystal anyway. The closest thing I'm planning to teach is the Matukai forms, and that's not the same as sparring practice. It also won't do much good against blasters unless you count making it easier to run away." I shook my head, "Oh it won't stop them from being dangerous. Force push down a flight of stairs, enhanced muscles to snap a neck or break ribs, but that's not skill, or overwhelming power. It's just one more way to do something horrible."

Obi-Wan didn't respond, though he did look thoughtful. Not even remotely convinced, but thoughtful. I doubted I could convince him. I was a heretic preaching thing at odds with the Jedi code, and actively working to break the status quo. Everything I said was suspect. Luckily, I was pretty sure I knew people whose beliefs he might be more willing to listen to. Even better, I'd managed to score a contract heading that way. Nice thing about vacation worlds was they drew people from all over who then needed rides back to wherever they came from in the first place. Lots of business from people who tended to have the credits to blow on chartered flights and month long vacations.

"Look, we've got a week's shore leave to not be cramped up in here before we leave with our next group of passengers. You and Anakin both have credits to burn that don't need to be justified to some bursar or requisitions officer. Enjoy yourself, meditate on a beach, go to a bar and buy everyone a round of drinks, get some training in with the kid. If you want to take another shot at a more neutral or positive video about the Jedi order go for it."

"And what will you be doing, Captain?" The question was much more relaxed then his earlier retorts. I wasn't sure if that was because he thought I might have a point, or if he was just putting the argument to the side for now. Maybe it was the offer to let him make a pro Jedi video instead of his anti Force video.

"Winning bar bets. Trying to find someone to man the other gun… Probably spend some time on a beach or in a field running through some forms. I don't always have the space or time to practice. Might as well use the opportunity."

"Lightsaber forms?"

"And unarmed combat." I shrugged. "I'd rather not get up close when people pull blasters, but I try not to let myself get too rusty." I grimaced, "Though without sparring partners or anyone to point out mistakes, I'm not sure how successful I've been."

"Then perhaps this will be a chance for _me_ to teach _you_ something." Obi-Wan's grin was aggravatingly cheeky.

I grumbled, but didn't dismiss the offer. I was pretty sure I could use the refresher course.

{}{}{}{}

Coming back to my ship a hundred credits richer, but no closer to finding a second gunner was a bit of a letdown. Not a surprise though. Vacation worlds weren't known for their seedy underworld full of spacers. A lot of these people likely owned their own yachts and either learned to pilot them on a lark, or more often retained pilots. Ships like mine were in the distinct minority here.

The flicker of movement in the shadows by the hanger entrance caught my attention. Oddly there was no sense of warning or danger from the Force. Still I came to a stop and waited as the figure walked into the dim lighting of the hanger bay.

It was a Mirialan girl with modest curves, deep green skin, and brown eyes. She had tattoos, black triangles, alternating point up and down leading from the corner of her eyes horizontally back to her ears. Her short cropped black hair was broken up by scattered blue highlights, and she was dressed in what looked like expensive casual clothes, all in dark shades. Not an unattractive girl, but she couldn't be more than sixteen. A bit too young for me… and more relevantly a bit young to be wandering around by herself in random hangar bays.

"Can I help you with something kid?"

"Ha! I knew it was you! Flicker kept insisting there was no way I could get lucky enough to be on the same planet as you, but I'm more than good enough to get inbound flight manifests out of system security. It's not even encrypted! And how many ships named _Arcane Knowledge _could possibly be bouncing around the galaxy? I mean there are probably at least a few because there must be trillions of ships out there, at least. But YT-2000's? not nearly that many of those so I was sure it had to be you!"

I blinked almost dumbfounded by the river of words that flowed out of her mouth. If she had managed to rhyme while doing it, I'd have been convinced she was a rapper.

"And I was right! Suck it Flicker! Family vacation away from my baby and I still managed to find you first with nothing but a supped up datapad! Sure, it was a lucky break, but we're dealing with the Force here! Obviously, it's a sign that I was meant to find you. This is just the beginning! A few years learning from you and I'll be just as big a badass IRL as I am on the holonet!" She let out a giddy squeal.

"I am far too sober for whatever this is." I muttered, "Kid are your parents around here somewhere?"

"Huh, oh no. I ditched them back at the hotel when I realized you were here."

"Right… let's go make a holocall before I somehow get implicated as a kidnapper.

{}{}{}{}

"Delia Anak Dharam, what were you thinking wandering off at this time of night! You sent your father and I into a panic thinking you had been kidnapped!"

"But, Mom,"

"No buts, young lady!" The small hologram of the older Mirialan woman snapped, before turning to face me, "Captain thank you so much for calling to tell us our daughter is alright. I don't know what gets into her sometimes. She's always been prone to flights of fancy, but she's never done something this irresponsible before."

"Mooooom." Delia whined, "This is Captain Kesel! He's the one making the Force videos I showed you and Dad!" That actually seemed to stop the next round of remonstrations in their tracks as the hologram more closely scrutinized me.

"You're certain?" She asked with a calculating glint I wasn't sure I liked the look of.

"Yes!" Delia grinned wide, "My friends and I spent weeks working through every registry we could get our digital paws on!" She turned to give me an accusing look, "Do you know there are several thousand humans named John Kessel. And six hundred are within your estimated age range? It actually took our analysis program forty five minutes to narrow the possibilities down to just a few dozen. We had to go over the last hundred files personally to get an exact match. Shade wouldn't stop bragging about being the one to actually identify you. As if it was some accomplishment instead of dumb luck that he got stack of profiles with your file in it." She sighed.

"And then you had to go to Coruscant. Getting your flight plan from Takobo was a breeze, seriously their security is _garbage_, but Coruscant?" She scowled, "Their security is bleeding edge. My friends and I are good, but we're not _that_ good. You'd need a system twice as good as my custom rig to even try it, and you have to be a _legend_ among slicers to pull it off without a back door." She shook her head, "Total black hole for information acquisition at our level, and with the way you just seem to go wherever you please we didn't even have any regular ports of call to keep an eye on. I sliced system security here just to see if I could pull it off without my baby, and then I found your ship docked here!" She grinned a megawatt grin, "Had to be destiny, or the Force, or the best damn luck in the galaxy! I had to come meet you!" She sheepishly scratched her cheek just below her tattoo. "I, uhh, just forgot to grab my comlink before I left."

"Sorry, are you telling me that a bunch of teenage slicers have been trying to keep tabs on me?"

"Dude, are you kidding me? Maybe a sixth of the slicer community has been trying to keep tabs on you. My friends and I are just some of the best up and comers." She shot me a cheeky grin. "Pretty sure some of the more experienced slicers had tabs on you after like, a week, at the outside. Depends on when the video got brought to their attention, and how much real work they needed to get through first. Some of them like to feed us tips and puzzles. Sort of a cross between entertaining themselves and helping us learn. One of them promised to give us a lead if we had too much trouble picking up the trail again after Coruscant. They know we aren't that good yet."

That took me a moment to digest and I found myself glancing between the girl and her mother.

"Should I be worried?" I wasn't sure which of them I was asking. Her mother's sigh at least indicated who I was going to get an answer from.

"I wouldn't be overly concerned. While I've never understood my daughter's fascination with computer systems, I've learned that the slicer community is less criminal than one might expect." She gave her daughter a look of fond exasperation, "They seem to have only two real goals, amusing themselves, and using their skills for profit. It's a rather more mercenary calling than I would have liked to see my daughter get into, but I can't deny that she's skilled at it." She shook her head. "Targeting lone individuals is generally considered beneath their skill."

Delia nodded firmly. "Screwing with people that don't have any real defense is kid stuff, the big names shut that down when they catch wind of it. Then you either get with the program or system security starts getting anonymous tips."

"That's good… I think." I shook my head, "So about getting your daughter back to you. I can let her use one of the beds in the empty crew cabin for the night and bring her over in the morning? Or would you prefer to come and pick her up now in person? I'm certainly not about to say you can't come get your kid if that's what you want to do."

"What?!" Delia shouted, "Oh heck no! You're not getting rid of me that easy!" She slapped her hands to her sides and bowed as best she could in the cramped quarters of the ship's cockpit, "Please train me in the ways of the Force!"

The groan from the holoprojector mirrored my feelings on the matter rather closely.

"No. Now about getting your daughter back to you?" The mother's surprised chuckles were almost as amusing as Delia's outraged squawk

"Hold on!" Delia shouted, "You can't just dismiss me like that! I've got potential! I was just under the threshold the Jedi use for recruiting. And, and, and, I've been practicing everything you've explained! I can sort of sense the Force now when I go through stretches and kata's… I think. And maybe a little bit when I meditate!"

I thumped my head off of the back of my seat. "It's not about potential, kid. There's a reason I decided to make those videos instead of starting up a school or something. I bounce all over the galaxy." I waved a hand over the console to emphasize the point, "I've got jobs to do, and I don't have the room to start carting around a bunch of students."

"I could join your crew then! What spacer crew is complete without a good slicer?"

"Most of them." I deadpanned.

"Captain." The voice from the holoprojector grabbed my attention away from the petulant teenager. "Your videos, are they genuine? Can you actually teach those who lack a strong innate connection to sense and use the Force?"

"Well, yeah. I mean, it's not a perfect solution, personal instruction instead of carefully worded guidelines would be better. There just isn't any way to make that work on a galactic scale. Not even if every trained Force user dedicated themselves to teaching. I'm just doing my best to give people guidelines to work with."

She nodded decisively to herself. "Captain, Mirialans are, generally speaking, a very spiritual people. You have given our culture as a whole the chance to feel the Force. That is no small thing to even the least religious among us. While our daughter has a strong affinity for silicon and coding, she is no exception to our peoples general feeling about the Force. If anything, she has always been fascinated by it." The woman hesitated as if choosing her next words with extreme care. "My husband and I have long known that Delia would not follow us in a more _conventional _career. Her heart and soul are in her codes and puzzles." Delia's pleased smile showed surprising depth from the motor mouth.

"I'll grant you, we expected to keep her at home for at least a few more years… But if this is something she wants to pursue… Do you have any openings on your crew my daughter might be able to fill?" I slapped a hand to my forehead. Even as Delia started to cheer.

"Mrs. Dharam, I can teach your daughter to feel the Force, I can teach her how to use it. Hell, I can teach her the things any good spacer _needs _to know if she's half as good with machines as she seems to be with computers." I paused and tried to find the best way to explain. "You have to understand though, traveling with me is not going to be safe. Every video I make is me telling the Jedi order to kiss a hutt." Delia snorted into her hands, but I ignored that for the moment. "How long their patience with my antics will last is anyone's guess. And every criminal group who catches wind of me is going to consider me a juicy target with minimal protection. I can minimize the risks by staying out of the Outer Rim, but that just means they'll have to be careful about things. There aren't many Dark Side Force sects out among the stars, but if they take offense they might very well come after me too. You do not want your daughter within a parsec of me or my ship."

Delia seemed to deflate even as her mother chewed on my words. "Delia, didn't you once tell me that you and your friends made a game out of seeing how many false alerts you could spread for a ship that had been scrapped." The girl lit up like a blaster bolt in the night, nodding rapidly, "Could you and your friends do something similar for the Captain? Spread false trails all across the galaxy to obscure his location?"

"Easy!" Delia's grin was all teeth. "I'll get the boys on board; between us no one will know where the ship is until it lands!"

Mrs. Dharam smiled a cheeky little smile, and gave me a raised eyebrow. It sounded like a good plan, and having a slicer on board was suddenly a lot more appealing. I still had to ask the obvious question.

"Why? I'm telling you this could get your daughter killed and you're encouraging her? Shouldn't you be trying to talk her out of this?"

The woman smiled fondly. "She's a bit young... but she's old enough to make decisions for herself, Captain. And as I said, we are a spiritual people. For my daughter to find you while we were away from home on vacation of all things… How could this not be the will of the Force?"

I didn't know what to say to that. After leaving the order I had tried my hardest to put aside the religious aspects of my training. It got in the way of pushing boundaries and experimenting. But there was always that niggling in the back of my mind about how the Force pushed me to do things, or go places from time to time. About how coincidence sometimes stretched into the ridiculous around me. There was a sense of purpose in the Force, if you willing to listen. Just knowing that made you want to listen, and follow, and _believe. _I glanced to the side to see the green teenager looking at me with hope filled eyes. Hell, I'd been younger when I decided to make my own way in the galaxy. With a groan I slumped back into my seat.

"You ever worked a quad laser turret before?"

"Um, no?" Her head tilted to the side in slight confusion.

"Guess what you're going to be learning as your first official duty on the _Arcane Knowledge_?"

Dalia squealed and glomped onto my side.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you! I promise you won't regret this! When can I start learning? Where's my room? Can we swing by Mirial to pick up my baby sometime soon? I'm good, but I'm a little limited with just my datapad. Where are we going first? Oh Force, I still need to get my clothes before we leave!"

I slumped into my chair as the excitable girl starting talking with her mother. Maybe I'd get lucky and her father would put his foot down about not letting her work for me?


	8. Chapter 8

**AN: Still don't own Star Wars. Though hopefully by the time I'm done here Disney will regret not hiring me to consult on the sequals.**

* * *

I walked over to where Delia's parents were watching their daughter run laps with sad smiles on their faces. Her father had not in fact been thrilled, but between his wife and daughter the man had eventually folded like cardboard.

So far, I was impressed. Her Matukai forms we're alright, though there had been a number of small flaws I needed to correct. It was good to know what from my lessons needed clarification. I'd probably enlist her help to make a video about those details later. For now, just getting a skill and physical baseline was a good start.

"She's put in a lot of work, hasn't she?"

"She always does, but only if it's something she really wants." Her father, Grigor, answered fondly. "Most of her school grades are good, but she only excels if it's something she finds interesting."

"But when it is something she wants," her mother, Anwen, chimed in, "nothing stops her. She's like a sponge, soaking up whatever information she can and applying it." I nodded absently.

"Hey kid, that's enough for now!" Delia slowed to a walk and ambled over breathing heavily.

"How'd I do, teach?" She asked with her usual cheek, in spite of her shortness of breath.

"Not bad." I shrugged, "Got a long way to go yet, but that'll come with time. For a month's practice you're pretty good." I glanced over at her family, "You and your family are welcome to hang around or swing by whenever. But you've got what you're bringing moved onto the ship, and I've seen where you're at… I'd say you should get out of here and spend time with your family. If they're leaving in five days you should make the most of it. I know I promised we would head their way for your computer, or that I'll let you off if you come to your senses…" She rolled her eyes, and her parents shared fondly exasperated grins, "but that could be a couple months. You should make the most of this."

The girl just gave me one of those beaming smiles I was coming to recognize as her trademark before dropping down next to her mother. Which was about when I noticed Obi-Wan heading my way with that grin that promised burn marks from training sabers, and the venting of his annoyance. That was fine though. Even if the Jedi weren't hunting me down just yet the option was still very much a future possibility. This was my first chance to get some practice against another person wielding a lightsaber since I left the temple. If worst came to worst the practice could be priceless.

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Obi-Wan raised a curious eyebrow as I settled into a Makashi stance. Form two was pretty uncommon among the jedi given that it's only real use was in fighting opponents with lightsabers. I'd only gotten instruction in some of the bare basics of the style before leaving. Most practice sessions had focused heavily on Shii-Cho and Soresu. But I'd had the basics, and I'd picked up some more advanced tricks from a sport that developed out of old sword duels.

The sport was based around with what might as well have been a long, thin, pointy piece of metal, held one handed. The whole idea was to keep opponents at a distance and score small wounds. If you wanted to actually kill someone it took a certain degree of precision. Then again even small or shallow wounds from a lightsaber could be debilitating. Better, for someone in my unique position of having no one to train against, and limited space to practice in, the linear in and out style was easier to practice in the confines of my ship. Tweaking it to include small slashes which took full advantage of the blade's ability to cut regardless of direction was just gravy. It fit well with what little I knew of Makashi before leaving the temple and I'd practiced it on and off over the years in case the Jedi ever decided to send someone after me.

Until I'd started making my videos it had been an irrational fear. But as the idea had come together and I'd grown more committed to it, I had practiced more and more often. My bastardized hybrid style was theoretically sound, but untested in combat. I'd had marginally more luck adapting Soresu to be used with one hand. Not as controlled, as the original, and it made bouncing back blaster fire a lot harder. But so long as the attacks only came from the front? Well, turning my body reduced the target area they could shoot for anyway, so it worked, more or less. A free hand could go to my lightsaber or to something else as needed that way, and I liked having options.

"Your lightsaber and your stance are… unusual." Obi-wan commented neutrally. I glanced down and ran a thumb fondly over the activation switch.

The handle was curved, which made it easier to control for a one handed style like mine. I'd wrapped it in black nerf leather for a better grip. Wrapping handles in leather was a custom lost to history for most cultures, but it still saw some use in traditionalist groups, and with primitive species that hadn't yet developed to the point where melee weapons became obsolete. It was probably my favorite addition from when I decided to make myself a new blade.

"Bounce around the galaxy long enough and you'll come across all kinds of different ideas." I answered while dodging the unasked question, "Learning new things is half the reason I left the order after all."

Thumbing the activation switch the white blade snapped into existence with a familiar hiss. I settled deeper into my stance and let the Force flow through me, enhancing my abilities. Clearing my mind and focusing on my opponent I let the Force whisper in the back of my mind, not enough to control my actions like I might if I wanted to try deflecting blasters bolts, but enough to let it nudge my aim, and hopefully sense feints coming before they happened.

Obi-Wan raised a curious eyebrow at the color of my blade before activating his own blue blade and settling into a Soresu stance. A stable stance with his blade in front of his body ready to be swept from side to side in short sharp movements meant for deflecting blaster fire. I internally growled at his choice. The defensive style was one of the better choices for defending against my bastardized version of Makashi. Well, unless he practiced Makashi, or Ataru. A more experienced practitioner could likely pic me apart. And I had no idea how to deal with someone bouncing around attacking me from every angle like some demented hawk bat. That was the kind of insanity that was only possible thanks to the Force. Much as I normally appreciated things that were only possible through the Force, I didn't want to face most of those things in a fight.

Firming up my resolve I lunged forward, blade stabbing out ahead of me. As expected, Obi-Wan deflected it to the side. Not giving him time to counter attack, I pulled back and lunged again before he could make a swipe of his own. Obi-Wan's face scrunched up as he deflected thrust after thrust.

Twenty seconds of that and Obi-Wan managed to swat the tip of my blade well out to the side and stepped in to make a counter strike. I gave ground, immediately backing away even as I brought my blade to bear again forcing him to halt his advance so as not to simply walk into it.

"For someone self taught you are better than expected, Captain." He said as he wearily eyed the tip of my blade.

"Can't really take credit for it, I'm afraid. I got most of it from a sport that's popular on Lantillies. I just mixed it with what little of knew about Makashi."

Shifting my wrist, I brought the tip of the blade up slightly and lunged in again with a small slash aimed for Obi-Wan's shoulder. When he deflected it, I used the gained momentum to swing the blade up and around in a tight arc as I stepped in for a strike at his neck. Wide eyed he blocked that as well and quickly fell into a retreating defense as I pushed my attack with more small swipes and lunges. First blood, metaphorically, went to me as I abruptly changed targets and tagged his left hand. The training mode we had our sabers set to ensured that it would only sting for a bit. I pulled back and gave him a chance to shake it off.

"An interesting adaptation." Obi-Wan settled into a different, more aggressive, stance. "Let's see how it performs against someone on the offensive, shall we?" His new stance had his blade held high over his head ready to bring it down in a powerful slash. I thought it might be Djem-So. It had been a long time since I last saw some of the classic styles in action though.

Rather than letting him set the pace I lunged in again with a stab for his face. He countered by bringing his blade down in a slash. Twitching my blade about six inches to the left I kept the blades from colliding. I sidestepped his slash before lunging in again. With his blade out of position Obi-Wan couldn't block it. He was however in an excellent position to reverse the arc of his blade and smack me in the side at about the same time I nicked his collarbone. I stepped back and gingerly rubbed my side. I'd forgotten how much that stung.

"Think I'll give you that one. Double hit or not, I'd have come off worse from that one."

"Not by much." Obi-Wan admitted rubbing the spot I'd struck, "That was far too close to my neck for comfort.

A minute later we reset our stances and got back to perfecting the ancient art of killing another person without dying in the attempt.

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"Captain, I must admit, your style isn't half bad for all that it is self taught." The compliment rang a bit hollow considering how quickly he had adapted. I'd given him a few stings to think about, but after a bit of time to adjustment he'd more than payed me back. Worse still towards the end he'd started experimenting with bits of my style himself. Well I'd gotten him back as his endurance started to run out. I wasn't a Matukai master, but my endurance had certainly benefited from practicing their style.

"It works." I agreed as I gingerly stretched my singed arm, "It would work a lot better if I practiced more regularly. And would you just call me John already. Formality is overrated."

That earned a chuckle from my sparring partner.

"Would you be interested in a trade? More sparing matches and some pointers in exchange for Matukai lessons? I'll admit I was skeptical about your claims that they could fight for hours on end before this, but your endurance is giving me second thoughts."

I mulled the offer over before nodding. Considering he could just watch my videos to get those lessons regardless getting more sparring practice in exchange for some hands on lessons was a good deal.

Before we could discuss things in greater detail, we were set upon by a pair of overly excited… no, that's not right. Anakin might be a Padawan, but I didn't have a title for Delia. Not that there really needed to be one of course, but it would feel weird if I didn't give her some designation. Then again, student, is a generic and non offensive title. That it also lacked the dramatic flair of padawan or apprentice made it all the more appealing.

"That was so cool!" Delia cheered, "When can I make a lightsaber, what colors can it be? Do I have to learn to fight with your style? Can I learn other styles? Oh, oh, can I invent my own style?!"

"You are not getting a lightsaber anytime soon. And if I do show you how to make one you had better believe that it won't be until you've shown a good deal of skill with the Force, and responsibility. We'll get you a blaster pistol once we're off of this overly peaceful tourist trap though." I hesitated, then shrugged. "Probably some vibro knives too. Those can come in handy."

She blinked, tilted her head, then grinned wide and pulled out her datapad from her satchel. A moment later she was lost to the outside world as she started looking up blaster models.

"That was pretty cool." Anakin chipped in, "Form two is pretty rare, and that wasn't quite the same."

"Like I told Obi-Wan, it's blended with something I picked up from a fighting sport. I've been working on it on and off for a few years now. I haven't had anyone to practice against though, so I've just been working off of a few books and vids. I'll show you the files later if you want to look them over." I directed the offer at Obi-Wan as much as Anakin.

"Yes," Obi-Wan agreed, stroking his beard. "I'm rather curious about it. You clearly need practice, but you gave a much better showing than I had expected." Which I guessed was as close as I'd ever get to him admitting he had been looking forward to a chance to smack me around a bit.

I nodded absently before returning my attention to my student.

"Didn't I tell you to get out of here and spend time with your family?" I asked Delia. She waved the questions off.

"Yeah, but then you broke out lightsabers, and we all wanted to stay and watch." She answered without so much as looking up from a list of technical details for some chromed blaster pistol. A little curious in spite of myself I looked over the things listed stats and shook my head.

"You're probably going to want something a bit more rugged." She glanced up curiously, "It's not always true, but some companies that make their guns look sleek and shiny are more concerned with appearance than reliability." I shrugged, "Of course, more rugged looking blasters are sometimes made to scam desperate lower income individuals. Pay attention to the reviews, and check beyond what the company advertises."

She hummed a vague acknowledgment.

"Captain," Grigor said as he and his wife walked over, "Would you like to join our family for some lunch?" I grinned at the suggestion of food before catching a whiff of myself.

"Ah, well I'd love to, but I think Obi-Wan and I both need to visit a fresher before we inflict ourselves on anyone." I offered with a grin. "If you'd like to meet up somewhere in a bit?"

Plans were quickly made and we were off.

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"I was hoping to ask you about your lightsaber." Obi-Wan said leadingly as I bit into my food. I took time chewing on both my answer, and my food. That the rest of the table was paying attention now was… slightly annoying, but whatever. I was proud of my blade.

"What about it? I doubt you want me to bore the Dharam's with every detail?"

"The color of your blade mostly. I've never seen a white lightsaber before."

"Well, when I decided to make a new blade, oh, three years back? I wanted to start entirely fresh. I've still got my old blade tucked away, but I wanted a new blade for a new start. Problem is unless you're a Jedi it can be a real pain to get a crystal from the usual caves. And I didn't want to spend years searching caves all over the galaxy hoping to get lucky… So, I paid someone to synth one up."

Obi-Wan and Anakin gaped at me.

"There isn't a lot of need for kyber crystals, but they do get used for a few things. I didn't really want a red blade though, that's just asking for trouble, and it turned out the cheapest color _not_ affiliated with the Jedi or the Sith was white."

I grinned around my food as Obi-Wan tried to wrap his head around me admitting to taking the quick and easy path while Delia looked to once again be contemplating lightsaber colors.

"So, what are your plans for the rest of your vacation?" I asked the Dharam's, "Assuming you can get your daughter to stop wandering off after me." I gave Delia a pointed look which she missed as she listened to Anakin's explanation about why my synthesizing a crystal was considered taboo.

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Delia had settled into the ship after her parents left in a constant buzz of curiosity. She asked a seemingly endless stream of questions, as if trying to learn everything she possibly could as fast as she could. If nothing else I'd admit that she was a hell of an actor. If I couldn't sense the melancholy nipping at her heels, I'd have believed she was just that interested in learning. And to an extent she was. But more than that she was trying very hard to distract herself from the fact she was already missing her family.

"Come on, Delia." I called dragging her away from whatever system she was trying to memorize. "Time to introduce you to the fans." Sure, it was just another distraction, but hopefully it would be more enjoyable than the minute of the hyperdrive generator.

"Wait, really?!" She spun to face me, wide eyed.

"Yup, come on. Hey, R3!" I shouted, "Time for another video."

"Coming, boss!" Droid and student followed me off of the ship with notable excitement.

"Alright R3, start it up." The droid gave one of its classic electronic trills and a little light on its head started to blink. "Ladies, gentlemen, assorted non binaries, today's class is two fold. The first portion is about something I should have explained earlier, and the second is going to be a more detailed review of the Matukai forms which will hopefully clear up any misunderstanding or confusion. So, without further ado let me introduce all of you to Delia."

The girl grinned a megawatt smile and waved happily at R3.

"Hello galaxy! Shade, Flicker, I told you I found him! I'll be in touch when we're not in hyperspace, so don't go solving all our challenges without me, you hear!"

I shook my head bemused at her casual attitude.

"Right, so, in one of my video's I mentioned that sometimes the Force can nudge you to do things. A better description might be to call the Force a meddlesome, doting mother, who pays special attention to those of us who can sense it." I deadpanned, "I've occasionally had urges to just go places, or do things. On one occasion I managed to save a pickpocket from getting arrested just by standing where the Force wanted me to. I did that by getting bowled over by the LEO chasing the kid. Never found out what the hell that was about, but it happened. On another occasion it pushed me into the perfect position to violently interrupt a kidnapping."

I grinned a bit at Delia's incredulous look.

"Force users are trouble magnets. Either it's drawn to us, or we get drawn to it. Either way, that's just how it works sometimes. Most recently Delia here, who had been following my videos from within a week of when I posted the first one, happened to be on vacation with her family on a planet where I was dropping off passengers. She then found out I was here, tracked me down, and talked her way onto my crew. It's the kind of coincidence that defies logic, and just reeks of the Force meddling. Please do not follow her example. My ship has already filled it's crew quota."

"I'm not saying it's like that all the time. I usually go months without anything particularly interesting happening to me. But if you really want to make a study of the Force, be prepared for similar things to happen to you. Honestly, I think it might be the best explanation for how the Jedi ended up as peacekeepers. They couldn't avoid getting pulled into things, so they just gave up and made it their duty." I grinned wryly.

"Maybe with a little luck all of you will help to make this galaxy an even better place." I smiled honestly, "Or maybe you'll all prove me wrong and have perfectly normal lives with the addition of a few cool tricks you can use to wow your friends that are too lazy to put in the time required to learn what I'm teaching. Regardless, it's something you should all be aware of, and now you are."

Dusting my hands, I shooed Delia back a couple of steps.

"Now, after seeing Delia run through the Matukai forms I realized that I didn't do as good a job of describing things as I thought. So, my lovely assistant will demonstrate the forms, and I'll be pointing out details I failed to make clear in the previous videos."

Delia lit up and slipped into the first stance, and that was how we spent the evening.

* * *

**AN:** **The curved grip is the traditional choice for one handed lightsaber styles, and while not _quite_ matching up with my fencing experience, it's close enough for me to roll with it. I went with wrapping the hilt in leather because this just makes sense to me. The more modern version is to use rubber, but meh, leather is the classic choice. It's really just there to give you a better grip, and the lack of such on lightsabers confuses me.**

**Blade color. There's a lot of meaning tied up in blade color, or none at all depending on how far down the rabbit hole you want to go, and how much you read into it. In the end I couldn't decide so I just left it up to a pole on Sufficient Velocity. Where someone made a very convincing argument for White based on its affiliation with a force sect I'd never even heard of before.**


	9. Chapter 9

**AN: Here we go again folks, stay home, stay safe, read the stuff I manage to write up and if you like the Worm fandom visit my ideas thread and adopt a plot bunny that speaks to you. Come on, if you're going to spend weeks on end in isolation you might as well try your hand at writing am I right? Ahh well, never mind that. The previous chapter has been rewritten to keep the lightsaber duel from being so heavily in John's favor it's a much more balanced scene now. Read and Review ladies and gentleman!**

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"Umm, John?"

"Yeah, Delia?" I asked even as I focused on welding a hook to the wall.

"If the ship always had this extra space above and below the halls and the mess… Why are you only setting it up to hold cargo now?"

"Because I was already over budget and the cargo elevator to bring things up or down would have made things worse. Since there wasn't anyone else on board, I had plenty of room before. With you three along now though it's getting cramped. And that's not even counting passengers." Damn but those kids were _noisy_. I hadn't even thought to ask about the age of the family's kids when they booked their flight

"Luckily, I'd basically paid off the ship already, so between our passenger's charter money, the ad revenue from my videos, and whatever the banks might be willing to loan us we should be able to get that installed now. It'll have to go where the mess is now, but with all this new storage space we can turn one of the cargo holds into a larger more comfortable mess. Give us all a bit of room to spread out. Though getting back to hauling cargo instead of people should do wonders for our space issues all on its own."

I'd hated leaving so much cargo space unused, but the only alternative would have been raising and lower to sizable holds worth of cargo with the Force. Not beyond my ability, but certainly tiring, never mind the kind of attention it would have brought me. Playing the long game had just been more practical in the end.

"Could we turn the other cargo room on the main floor into a training room?" Delia asked, "There's only enough space in my cabin for stretches and running laps is alright, but I kind of want enough space to actually practice the Matukai forms. Plus, you and Obi-Wan could spar whenever!"

The unspoken 'and me as soon as you show me how to make a lightsaber' went unsaid, but I heard it anyway.

Rocking back on my feet till I could slide down the wall to my back I took the time to seriously consider the idea. Finally installing the service elevator would more than double the _Arcane Knowledge's_ cargo capacity. Keeping one of the main floor cargo holds would mean an even larger profit margin. A necessity given that I now had to pay three salaries in addition to my own and keep the ship running. Turning the port hold into a mess hall with a game table would more than triple the size of the room we used for eating and relaxing. And that still left the couch and entertainment center before the cockpit. With just four of us on board that would be more than enough space for everyone to spread out and stop tripping over each other.

The idea of having a dedicated space for physical training was still tempting though…. Maybe I could just find some tables and chairs that folded into the wall? The cooking and cleaning stations would still take up a bit of room after that, but we would have enough space for some more serious exorcise that way…

"We'll see." I finally answered. "I think I've got an idea about how to make our new mess double as a training room. I don't want to lose that extra cargo space." After all, with the crew quarters finally getting used for their real purpose I hadn't been able to stock up on alcohol to sell on the side. And our destination made spirits sought after by those of discerning taste the whole galaxy over. If I had anything to say about it, we'd be leaving with the starboard cargo hold packed full of brandy.

{}{}{}{}

Obi-Wan was watching the proceedings with uncertainty. I was just bemused. The reason being that Anakin had offered to try coaching Delia through meditation when I'd needed to put her off to make a small repair. I'd told the parents to keep their kids from poking the ship's computer, so naturally they hadn't listened. Now I was adding the cost of the replacement part one of the little monsters had jammed a crayon into to their bill. The two had decided to retreat to the upper storage compartment I'd finally finished prepping.

It might have started as meditation an hour ago, but clearly the two of them had gotten bored with that and moved on to something else.

"Here, try and feel what I'm doing." Anakin suggested and he caused a small force push just to her left.

"Do that again?" Delia asked with a frown. Anakin obliged by repeating the effect, this time Delia's head snapped to the side following the small surge generated by Anakin's light Force Push.

"I felt that!"

"Seems like you two are making some progress." I called out drawing the teens attention to Obi-Wan and I.

Anakin blushed lightly when he realized he had an audience. Delia just smiled sunnily.

"Yeah, Anakin's a pretty good teacher." The boy blushed further at the praise.

"Glad to hear it, but we came looking to let you know dinner's ready." I smiled lightly as I added a developing crush to the list of things I could tease Anakin about. Granted I wasn't sure just yet. I'd have to keep an eye out for wandering eyes if I wanted to confirm my suspicion.

{}{}{}{}

Anakin and Obi-Wan watched my new lesson with rapt attention. Delia did as well but that was to be expected, given I was actually instructing her. I placed a lit candle in front of each of us. R3 was off to the side recording. This was a good entry level lesson on how to meditate on emotion and an even better exercise on learning to control them. Given Delia was getting to the point where she could sense the Force, and I'd already done a video on what the Jedi would consider standard meditation, as well as the Matukai moving meditation... It was time to give the overachievers an exercise that would let them really see what I was talking about when I mentioned the risks of the Dark Side.

"I picked this up from a small Force sect I managed to stumble across following rumors of witchcraft on a planet in the outer rim. They were… odd. None of them really had a genuinely strong connection to the Force, but they could pool their abilities to enhance the natural properties of herbal medicines to something genuinely effective… Or to lay sicknesses on people who offended them. They weren't willing to teach me any of that, and I kind of thought it would be a waste of time to learn herbalism since it would only be useful on that one planet. I did manage to observe their favored method of meditation." I gestured to the candles.

"Now, the candles they used were made with special plants they believed enhanced their connection to the Force. I don't have any of those plants, but I've found the style of meditation genuinely useful for learning to balance the Light and Dark sides of the Force."

I closed my eyes and settled myself into the familiar cross legged position.

"Reach out and feel the candles flame. Feel how it spikes and recedes, how every stray breath of air causes it to flicker and twist. It has its own rhythm, its own heartbeat if you will. If you feed energy into the flame, feed emotion into it…" I fed a bare hint of anger into the Force. My candle's flame grew from a modest inch high spark to a six inch flame. It actually put off enough heat to be easily felt now. "Power and energy," I forced my voice to stay level and calm in spite of the boosted emotions the Force was pushing into me, "but at a cost. See how much more quickly the candle burns. It burns so much more fiercely, but if it continues to burn so hotly it won't burn for nearly as long as it could."

I opened my eyes and looked my student in the eye. She was visibly nervous. Anakin looked much the same as Delia, Obi-Wan was visibly fighting not to draw his lightsaber.

"Using the Dark Side of the Force doesn't cost us the same way, but it's risky. Like I explained before, if you lose yourself, if you let those emotions control you?" I fed still more Anger and energy into the candle. The flame spiked to a full foot, and it threw out enough heat to be uncomfortable. The flame seemed to snap and snarl in random directions almost as if the fire itself was trying to lash out at the world around it. It burned like that for maybe twenty seconds before the flame consumed all of its wax and guttered out. "Then just like the candle, you too will go out in a blaze." The smirk on my face was maybe a touch darker than it would have been had I not been drawing on the Dark Side, but that just served to highlight the importance of the lesson.

I reached to the side and picked up another candle which I lit and placed before myself.

"That was anger. A negative emotion, and easily one of the most dangerous to draw on. Now I'm going to purge myself of those effects and center myself back in the Light Side of the Force. Watch the effect it has on the candle." After a bare moment spent struggling with my anger, I immersed myself fully in the Light Side of the Force. The candles flickering flame followed my emotions. Stabilizing until it burned low and cool. Only a half inch flame, cool, controlled and unnaturally stable. It did not so much as flicker or spike, staying a constant size, temperature and brightness.

"Now I'm going to feed a more positive emotion into the flame. Let's use… hmm, how about playfulness. A more complex emotion than anger, but generally a positive one unless you slip into malicious pranks or something."

The candle flame grew, fluctuating between maybe two and four inches, it flickered and danced even seeming to spin and curl. I grinned cheekily at my student.

"The flame reacts to what you feed into it. This form of meditation serves a number of purposes. It teaches you how to moderate the amount of emotion and power you feed into the Force. It gives you a visible example of the effects those emotions have, something you can associate with them to reinforce the lesson. It also serves as a good way to practice controlling those emotions. First draw on an emotion," I gestured to the still dancing candle, "then draw it back and center yourself in the Light Side of the Force." It took a moment for the flame to return to the tiny controlled spark that denoted the Light Side of the Force.

"Emotion and Logic. Action and Restraint. You have both, you are both. Don't deny either, but don't let either consume you. Balance is a struggle, a journey, but it has its own rewards." I smiled the serene smile of someone surrounded by the sense of _peace_ that the Light side of the Force brought with it.

"Alright, Delia, give it a try."

The girl closed her eyes and focused. It took a moment but the flame grew to almost seven inches and put off a respectable amount of heat, but unlike when I had channeled anger her flame burned with as consistently as if she was drawing on the Light Side of the Force.

"Love." I'd seen the effect myself. "Familial love specifically." I could also feel it as she radiated the emotion into the Force. "Try and reduce how much power you put into the flame, Delia. Part of the idea is to make the candle last." The flame shrank slightly, but maintained its properties. "Good. Now reach for the Light Side of the Force. Those are your emotions, they are real and important, you aren't getting rid of them. Just setting them aside."

It took a few minutes in which the size and temperature of the flame fluctuated wildly, but eventually she succeeded and her flame matched my own. She glanced up at me with a tentative smile.

"Well done. Now it's just a matter of practice and speed."

{}{}{}{}

"Ladies and gentleman, this is your captain speaking." I spoke over the ship's intercom. "We are now making our final approach to Corellia. Please be ready to depart in roughly fifteen minutes."

Corellia, home of countless smugglers, Corellian Brandy, Coresec, and the Green Jedi. The Green Jedi were considered Heretics by the Coruscant Jedi. Of course, the fact that the few Green Jedi I'd met thought I was a heretic meant I was even further off the reservation then they were. But after weeks spent in my company, I was seriously hoping the Green Jedi would be something Obi-Wan could relate too and hopefully chip away a bit at his adherence to the Coruscant teachings he had grown up with.

I was too out there, too extreme, for him to be comfortable with. But the Corellian Jedi didn't draw on their emotions. They acknowledged them. They lived with them. But they didn't use them. Hopefully that more moderate stance would resonate better with Obi-Wan. It also might be nice to see if I could convince one of them to do a video explaining their stance to the wider galaxy.

Better still the _Arcane Knowledge_ was from the Corellian shipyards, so this was the best place to get it worked on and the local Brandy was the envy of the galaxy. Yes, with any luck this would be an extremely profitable all around.

{}{}{}{}

Obi-Wan had declared his intention to stay on the ship and meditate in peace, so that left the teens and I to take care of some immediate concerns like restocking supplies, and getting a quote for the work I wanted done. We were heading back to the ship when Anakin surprised all of us, possibly including himself if the look on his face was anything to go by.

"Uhm, Delia? Would you want to get dinner later?" the blushing teen asked out of the blue.

"Like a date?"

"Yes?"

"Awwww." Delia swooped up to his side and pulled the boy into a one armed hug. "I'm flattered, really, but I like girls too." She chirped. "Don't worry though, you can be my wingman!"

Anakin, still blushing, and now also sputtering managed to look indignant at the suggestion.

"Why am I _your_ wingman?"

"Because I'm the people person!" She declared, "Besides I'll use you to weed out the straight girls!"

Anakin did a rather impressive fish out of water impression for a few seconds.

"Ok?"

I managed to keep my amusement restrained to some quiet chuckles as Delia started to outline a not terrible plan for the two of them to pick up girls at a local swoop bike race we'd seen being advertised. I'd admit I hadn't seen that coming but at least now I wouldn't need to worry about any drama between the two of them.

"Come on you two, you can finish plotting after we get this stuff put away." I called over my shoulder to the lagging pair.

Yup, our stay on Corellia was going to be all kinds of interesting.

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**AN: I know some of you are thinking lesbians for the sake of lesbians. That is **_**NOT**_** what is happening here. As of this moment I have zero plans to focus on **_**any**_** characters' love life. None whatsoever. Any and all sex scenes will be fade to blacks, and I'm not even planning to have a lot of those. John's one night stand was more about establishing things about his character than anything else. **

**So why then did I make Delia a lesbian? Few reasons. She's 16 and John's 21. Illegal and immoral now, but given time skips and story progressions in two years they will be 18 and 23. At which point it enters into a range at which I wouldn't do more than raise an eyebrow at the relationship. Combine that with a student teacher relationship? The green skinned near human alien and the spaceship captain? And having them spend weeks at a time stuck together for hyperspace trips? I **_**know **_**the internet, and damn it all, no. I'm not going there. I don't even want to hear that speculation. That's just not what I want from her as a character. So I'm cutting it off here and now by the simplest means available to me. It also removes her from Anakin's dating pool and shoves her into an older sibling/friend role which I like a lot more than making them a couple doomed to split up. 'Let's stay friends' is a shitshow and I'm not even going to try writing it.**


	10. Chapter 10

**AN: Right the scene with the Jedi Council is a lightly edited and modified omake donated by Immortal Lurker from Sufficient Velocity you'll notice the shift from first to third person. Never quite felt like I got the hang of third person. Too much time writing in first person before I tried to make the switch I suppose. Now it just feels clunky and awkward. No issues reading it, but writing it?**

**Honestly despite everyone wanting reaction chapters for the council… meh? I'm not that inspired to write them as a group. Too many people, too many opinions, too fractious. Individuals? I've got some ideas for Mace, some for Yoda too but in regards to the rest of them? Nada. So big thanks to Immortal Lurker everyone for doing the heavy lifting on this scene. **

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{}{}{}{} onboard the Arcane Knowledge Obi-Wan's POV

"Master Yoda, Master Windu." I inclined my head towards the hollow projector.

"_Knight Kenobi." _The pair nodded back. _"An update you have for us?"_

"We've moved on to Corelia. The Captain plans to have the ship modified in her home shipyards to make things a bit more… comfortable." I paused to gather my thoughts. "He's planning to post his next video tomorrow. I'm forwarding it to you now."

I waited patiently as the two Masters watched the video of Captain Kesel explaining the candle meditation. When they refocused on me I was surprised to see that Master Windu actually appeared thoughtful. Master Yoda did as well, though the low dip of his ears betrayed his concern.

"_He's training her to come back to the Light." _Master Windu broke the silence as he cupped his chin. _"He's teaching her to use the Dark side, but also to stop using it. To center herself after each use… With enough training it would become engrained. An impulse even. Draw on the Dark side then center yourself within the Light."_

I blinked, startled at the insight. I'd been so caught up in the fact he was drawing on the Dark side I hadn't thought to look past that.

"_Mmm," _Master Yoda hummed, _"precautions he is taking. His words, weighted to impart warning. But still the Dark Side he teaches them to touch. Troubling." _

"_This certainly won't make the debates any simpler."_

"Debates, Master?"

The two Jedi Masters shared a brief look. Before sending me a data packet which I immediately loaded and watched.

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The councils debated. All the councils. Attendance wasn't required, there wasn't a war on, and many individual masters had other duties. But between the holograms and those present physically, it was standing room only in the high council room. Yoda had wanted to hold the event in the Room of a Thousand Fountains, but the Council of First Knowledge had insisted on a private location.

The reason was made clear almost as soon as the meeting came to order.

"We should have Kesel taken into custody immediately, and wipe the video from the holonet. Many will have viewed it already, but the information he has conveyed up to this point is minimal at best. We can stop this now before more harm is done. I have a team of slicers on standby, and Knight Kenobi and his Padawan are already in place to make the arrest." Astaal Vilbum, the Caretaker of First Knowledge spoke in a low and serious tone. The Caretaker of First Knowledge officially dealt with the preservation of holocrons and other lore. Unofficially, he was responsible for the Jedi Shadows, which hunted for and destroyed Sith artifacts. His budget had been quietly tripled after Naboo.

"Arrest?" said an indignant hologram of Master Jertia, head of the Agri-Corp. She did not often set foot on Coruscant, the city-planet having no farms. "For what?"

There was no murmuring in the council room. However, the Force moved in eddies and whorls, as so many Masters reached into the force to try and get a grasp on the situation.

Master Astaal spoke levelly as he turned to face Jertia. "For releasing dangerous information in a totally uncontrolled manner. All a viewer has to do is ignore or fail to follow the laughably inadequate safety instructions and the risk of them falling to the Dark Side becomes unacceptable."

Uncowed, Master Jertia shook her head. "Then you don't mean 'Arrest', you mean 'Kidnap', or possibly 'Abduct'. I've got the actual law for "State Secrets, Protected Knowledge, and Dangerous Information" right here on the datapad. A court order is required to take the video down, and they only grant those if the knowledge being shared falls into a few explicitly enumerated categories. Knowledge of the Force, even the Dark Side, is not one of those. If he starts teaching them how to make a plague, slice a moving spaceship, or use Sith Alchemy, we have him dead to rights. Until then, he's a taxpaying free citizen of the Republic we all swore to protect."

Master Astaal stewed in this for a bit, then projected humility into the Force as he bowed to the projection of Master Jertia.

Master Jertia graciously returned the bow. She turned to address the rest of the assembled masters. "I've seen young John's frustration a dozen times before. Many of our younglings are devastated when their time runs out, and they realize that they will never be Knights. This problem is ultimately a symptom of a deeper cause, that younglings who go down other paths are regularly crushed. Many find peace with their roles given time, but it does not make the initial transition any easier. We can control this by shifting a few things."

Master Jertia pressed a button on her datapad. There were no beeps or whirrs of notification, but a dozen Masters felt a nudge, and silently checked their own devices.

"This is the proposal I sent last year, with a few modifications. Some might be seen as radical, but I urge you to consider. The basic features are a path to knighthood for all younglings, and paths outside knighthood that allow younglings to use the years of training that they have been given."

The projection of Master Jertia grinned. "The most relevant being outreach. We can teach the same things young John is trying to teach, only we can do it better, because we will have flesh and blood Force users in front of them, not a low quality holovid. They can do it in a safe environment, and most importantly this can be used to spread word of the dangers of doing this without an instructor to guide them. We address the root of the problem, warn the galaxy, and provide a better, safer, alternative at the same time. This can stop the situation from getting out of hand, and allow the Order to grow in numbers like never before."

Often, speaking is not necessary for a large group of Masters. The Force enables an understanding deeper than words. Even those not present could tap into the feeling permeating the room, albeit weakly. There was conflict. Appreciation at a path forward which required no violence, and offered a better connection to a galaxy which had seemed so distant and hostile of late. Doubt for introducing so many unknowns.

An idea could be felt in the room. You got those, sometimes, an idea that couldn't properly be said to have a single owner. Drawing from a half dozen sources, a conjecture from one, an insight from another. Oppo Rancisis, head of the Council of Reconciliation, who dealt in diplomacy and negotiation, felt it most clearly, and gave it a voice.

"Our prodigal youngling has claimed to want revenge. But it seems clear from the way he speaks and acts that what he wants is reform. These reforms, in fact, are likely very similar to some of the ones that he wants."

Master Jertia spoke, perhaps a trifle quickly, though not rudely so. "If the reforms are for our own betterment and that of the galaxy as a whole, does it truly matter what instigated the changes?"

"It matters because these may not be all the reforms he wants. If he realizes that threatening chaos causes us to yield here, might he threaten chaos elsewhere to get more? And if we decide that his new demands are not beneficial, will he follow through?"

The masters considered. Eventually, Master Jertia bowed conceding the point.

Master Rancisis returned the bow. "The reforms are a good idea, and demand lengthy meditation from all of us at the very least. And my heart is troubled for the plight of our prodigal youngling, resentful and alone. The Council of Reconciliation has been lax in its duties. We must provide a way for those outside the Order to actually reconcile with the Order. We must be a living, breathing part of the Republic. If the voices outside cannot actually be heard, truly heard and considered, with our reasoning laid bare, then they will scream at the door without end. The only way to contain the chaos is open the door and let them in. I propose that every month or so, a few outsiders, ideally representatives of larger groups, be given an hour with a Jedi Master. They can talk about whatever concerns them, and ask questions about whatever policy is troubling them. Our rogue instructor should be given the first of such appointments, and we should use it to go over his doubts about the Order, and our proposed solutions."

There was no grumbling. But it was clear that the thought of regularly scheduled disruptions was displeasing to many present. Particularly disruptions by angry people who wanted to shout in their peaceful temple.

Putting a whisper of Force behind his words to draw attention back, Master Rancisis continued. "I know, I know, none of us want any more conflict in our lives, we get enough on the missions and in meetings. But the conflict is already there, we just blind ourselves to it. Our options are to face it, and invite it inside where it can be controlled, or ignore it and leave it uncontrolled. The spread of the videos has yet to reach truly worrying levels, but it is only a matter of time. And once it does there will be groups seeking answers from us. I'd much prefer to have a solution in place before the problem arrives."

Quiet fell on the council room, deeper than the mere silence of a gap in a conversation. Each Master was retreating into the Force in their own way, wondering what was best for the temple, the order, the galaxy.

Long minutes passed.

The Force began to swirl, and all were drawn from their contemplation. It was not sudden, or violent, or dangerous. It was simply there, like a great mountain. Powerful, impossible to miss, though not demanding attention, even for those not physically presented. With all eyes on him, Yoda, Grand Master of the Order, and head of the High Council, began to speak.

"Control!" cried the ancient master ."Control, control, control! Speak of nothing else, will we? Is the Galaxy ours, that we must choose everything for it? Is the Republic? The Force?"

"Master Rancisis," said Grand Master Yoda, turning to the Thisspiasian, "Has it been so long that you forgot the first lesson I taught you?"

It had been over 200 years since Master Rancisis had been in a class with the other younglings, listening to Grandmaster Yoda. But he remembered anyway. "Don't look. Feel."

"No!" said Yoda. "Before even that, it was."

Master Rancisis frowned. That had been the very first words at the start of the lesson. He had barely seen Yoda before that day. The only thing that had happened before that was calling the class to order...

"Sit still. Pay attention." said Master Rancisis.

"Yes. Reform, perhaps we should. Listen, absolutely we should. But stop this, we should not. Not yet. Decide what it should be, we should not. Decide what the galaxy should be, we should not."

The Force cleared and flowed smoothly as the Masters received the Grand Master's wisdom. Agreement and consensus were forming, progress was being made.

"Master Yoda—" There was a thrum in the Force as two dozen masters turned as one with a diamond hard focus on the one dissenting voice. One could of course disagree with the Grand Master. But to contradict him so directly in front of all four councils just as they were starting to form behind him, was not a common sight.

"Master Yoda," said Master Astaal, "The Republic is ours."

Murmuring. Actual, vocal murmuring broke out in the High Council Room.

Ignoring them, Astaal continued. "Ours to defend. Ours to protect. Ours to uphold. They have no standing army, no fleet to speak of. They have had no need of either, because for the past thousand years, since the Ruusan Reformations, when the Republic needed defending, the Order defended. When action was needed, the Order acted. We have kept the old ways, because their fruit has been a golden age that has lasted a thousand years."

His shoulders sagged. "We aren't perfect. Slavery was never expunged from the outer rim. Naboo was allowed to starve before our eyes and we sent One Knight and one Padawan into a deathtrap set by the first Sith to be seen in a thousand years. We do need reform, we do need to listen. We are not above the law, and cannot go abducting people who say things we do not like."

Resolve poured into the Force. "But we can't pretend all is well. We can't pretend our enemies do not actively conspire against us. The Order has lost more Knights to violence in the past 10 years than in the previous 50. We have had more leave the order in the past 10 years than in the past 500. And something is clouding the future. To throw ourselves open to outside influence, when all about us there are signs of malicious intent… How can we know which ideas put forward are truly safe, for ourselves or those under our protection. Every change we make may well invite the Fall, and we might never know until it is too late. And to stand by and not act as change sweeps the galaxy throwing all into imbalance… is that truly a path we can take knowing the harm it might cause?"

The Force grew chaotic again, as a dozen conflicting viewpoints from different Masters tried to work themselves out.

Grand Master Yoda sighed.

The councils debated.

{}{}{}{}

I rubbed my temples in a futile attempt to ease my growing headache. "The Council is in a deadlock. I can't think of any time such has happened in the past…" I trailed off trying to actually think of such an occasion either in my life or historically.

"_More common than you might think, this is."_ Grand Master Yoda admitted with a sigh, _"But to such a degree, rare. Like younglings debating the 'best' saber form it is."_

Memories of long and heated debates over the merits of each saber style flickered through my mind and I couldn't quite suppress a grin at the comparison. There was precious little in the temple for younglings to disagree over but the benefits and shortcoming of saber forms never failed to draw out personal opinions.

"_We were surprised that we never saw the video you were given the opportunity to create. Were there difficulties?" _

"Of a sort." I frowned. "The Captain deemed my first attempt counter productive, and too different from what he had suggested."

"_How so?"_ Master Yoda asked.

"I dedicated the majority of the video to cautionary tales about the dangers of the Dark Side. The Captain claimed that I would only encourage anyone that intended to do harm with his teachings, while scaring off those who did not. He was also rather insistent that it did not constitute a suitable explanation and representation of the Jedi Order."

The two masters shared a look.

"_He may be right." _Master Windu admitted. _"The teachings are out there and available now. A heavy handed approach might only serve to deafen his audience to our words."_

"_Mmm, meditate on this we will. Perhaps record a lesson I might. Give our words more weight, it would."_

"If you feel that is the best Master. I'll bring it up with the Captain when he returns." I murmured, my thoughts dozens of parsecs away from the conversation.

"_Something troubles you, Knight Kenobi?" _Yoda prompted.

"Yes, Master… Kesel's lessons on drawing upon the Dark Side of the Force… They unnerve me. More precisely, when he draws on his anger. It's like feeling a shadow of Darth Maul's presence. I don't think clearly about it. I hadn't even noticed he was training Delia to return to the Light. All I could focus on was that feeling of anger… I wanted to draw my lightsaber. To end the threat. I know he is not a Sith, but that feeling…" I closed my eyes and shook my head. When I looked back at the holo projector the Master's faces showed sympathy and concern. "I'm sorry, I'm not certain I was the best person to be sent on this mission."

"_Mmm a difficult path for you to walk this has become. Others, I believe, might have done far worse."_

"Master?"

"_Think, Knight Kenobi." _Master Windu answered solemnly. _"What might have happened if another had been sent on this mission. Someone more prone to reacting and less prone to thinking?"_

"_Gained access to his ship they might not have." _Master Yoda reclaimed the conversation. _"Your Padawan, pushed for it he did. How many Padawans might have done the same, hmm?" _Given the reason Anakin had pushed for it… few, very few, if any. _"And even then had they secured a place on the Captain's ship, attack him you have not. Others? More sure in their path, and less willing to listen? What might have happened had they chosen to act where you chose to wait?"_

I took my time considering the question carefully.

"The Captain, for all that his training is inconsistent and informal, is talented. Both with the Force and with a lightsaber. His style is unusual and _meant_ for dueling. If it came down to a fight I'd not feel comfortable betting against him." I admitted both to the Master and to myself. I was all too aware that the Captain was being rather circumspect with showing any Force techniques he may have learned over the years. A good surprise or three mixed with what skills I had seen and he could very well be a match for many Knights, and perhaps a few of the less combat inclined Masters.

"_Mmm and if he escaped an attack by the Jedi, what then?"_

"I don't know. I suppose he would try to disappear. Perhaps hide out in a less populated system until he thought it was safe?"

"_Perhaps." _Master Windu eyed me carefully. _"Or perhaps he would take the opportunity to proclaim to all of his viewers that the Jedi had attempted to kill him. Imagine the potential repercussions. If those who have grudges against the Order got ahold of such news we would be decried for sending assassins after those who threaten our power and position."_

I grimaced at the very idea. It could be a heavy blow to our reputation. One that could take many years to recover from. Perhaps I wasn't the worst person to be on this mission after all.

"_These videos have yet to make the Captain a household name. But he is rapidly gaining more and more attention as some few are beginning to claim actual results from following his teachings. Not much, but enough to garner growing interest. Our best guess is that it will come to the attention of major news industries within the next six months. And we only suspect it will be delayed that long because the skeptics will be so hard to convince of the tutorials veracity."_

"_Stop this we cannot. Copies no doubt have been made by many. His student spread the videos to dozens of smaller sites, she has. His teaching cannot be made to disappear. A response we must find and soon, or be left behind we will."_

"Yes Master." I responded thoughtfully.

"_I'm sorry this mission is taxing on you, Knight Kenobi, but you and your Padawan have done well so far. Better than many others might have in the same situation. Do not doubt that. Stay the course. For all that the Council is conflicted, they know we need a response to this soon. We'll find our way through this."_

"_May the Force be with you." _Master Yoda smiled kindly.

"And with you Masters." I answered as they cut the connection.


	11. Chapter 11

**AN: Sup? No I'm not dead, and no the story is not being abandoned. Life just got insanely busy and my time for writing has taken a massive hit. So yeah, it's going to be slow updates now, especially with me still bouncing between my fics. Sorry all, that's just the way life is going for me for now.**

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{}{}{}{} Delia POV

The race track vibrated with energy as the crowd shuffled and shouted. My shaky ability to sense the Force made that statement a bit more literal. I couldn't pick out any individual emotions in this, my every shaky connection was more like getting bowled over by waves at the beach. It made it a bit hard to focus, all that emotion was infectious. I'd been moving with a bounce in my step since we got through the gates.

Anakin followed along in my wake navigating the crowd like a pro. I was honestly a little jealous. I'd been bumped more than a few times. Was it a jedi thing, or did he have practice with crowds like this? He had mentioned pod racing when he was younger. And how insane was that? Pod racing, at ten? That was crazy dangerous. I really should get more details about that out of him.

But that could wait! Anakin and I would have lots of time to talk about whatever the next time we jumped to hyperspace. Right now, we were on shore leave! My first ever shore leave as a space faring rogue! Delia Dharam, slicer, spacer, and apprentice Force user! Spacers are supposed to have a girl on every planet, and I had no intention of bucking tradition! Besides, Anakin was clueless and needed all the help he could get, and what kind of friend would I be if I left him hanging?

Finding girls in our age range though was proving… annoying.

There were thousands of people, but the groups were less than ideal. Families, couples, and groups of adults were the norm. There were some scattered teens. Some were watching the race, some were lost in their data slates and mostly ignoring the world around them. Which would be fine if I was here on my own, but I had my wingman to think of!

Sure, I'd never _really _done this before. I mean, I'd gone on dates, but those were all people I knew from school or wherever else. But I'd read about stuff like this, and was great with people! I could make it work, and I needed to show Anakin how it was done! It was the least I could do for all tips he was giving me about ships and the Force.

Mom and Dad would be scandalized.

I pushed the uncomfortable thought and the pang of homesickness aside. This was the life I'd chosen. This was part of the lifestyle. Part I was sure I'd enjoy! And after all the hard work and studying I'd put in didn't I deserve some fun?

Another glance over the crowd and I perked up. It was a little bit of a long shot, but it looked like a pair of sisters with silky black hair. Even better they looked like their ages were pretty close to Anakin's and mine. With a light nudge I grabbed Anakin's attention before moving towards the siblings. I could feel Anakin fall in a step behind me and to my left. As we got closer, I noticed the older sister only had an earring in her left ear and not her right. My gin grew into a full blown smile.

"Hey!" I greeted the pair with a chirp. The girls turned to and took the pair of us in with a glance. The younger sister seemed at least curious though the older sister just raised a disinterested eyebrow. Hmm, so she wasn't going to make this easy for me. No big deal, just got to play it cool. "I'm Delia, and this is Anakin, we just landed yesterday and were sort of exploring the town on shore leave."

"You two are supposed to be spacers?" The older girl put a hand on her hip and cocked it out to the side… she had _very _nice hips.

"Hi." the younger girl beamed at us, "I'm Lex, and this is my big sis Mara. Are you really spacers? Most spacers are older." She tilted her head inquisitive. "And dirtier."

Anakin spluttered a bit and I giggled. "Well, we're both pretty new. I only joined the crew a few weeks ago and Anakin joined the planet before I did."

Mara frowned a bit but relaxed slightly. "Why, shouldn't you be in school studying for a _real_ job?"

Ow, forget making this easy it was going to be tooth and nail trying to get this girl to warm up. Though her sister seemed more willing to talk so maybe Anakin had a chance? I couldn't very well drag him off now, even if I was getting shut down. Might as well push on.

"Meh. I was never going to be a nine to five desk jockey or whatever. I'd go crazy with a job like that." I stuck out my tongue at the very idea. Part of me wanted to brag about my skills as a slicer but this was _Corellia_, Core Sec was no joke. Even if they couldn't pin anything on me, they might stick me on a watch list and I did _not_ want that kind of attention. "I know a lot about computers, and the Captain _doesn't_. I handle that stuff for him, give him some pointers, and he's teaching me everything else I need to know about maintaining and flying a ship."

I gave Anakin a light punch to the arm. "Wonder boy here though is like some sort of savant. He already knew enough to be a mechanic and pilot before he even joined the crew."

Anakin blushed and looked away as he rubbed at his shoulder.

"It's not _that_ big a deal. I basically grew up in a parts shop. The more I knew the better, so I just kept learning."

Both girls were now giving him appraising looks. Mara glanced at me questioningly, obviously not quite believing what she was hearing. I just smiled cheerily and bobbed my head.

"Huh." Mara muttered. "That's pretty impressive."

"You can really pilot a ship?" Lex asked, wide eyed.

"Sure, I mean, nothing bigger than a light freighter, but anything bigger than that takes a few people to fly properly anyway."

And just like that Lex was chattering off Anakin's ear with a half dozen questions I could barely follow about everything from engines to navigation.

"For a clueless kid raised by monks, he's surprisingly good at this." I muttered under my breath.

"You two really are spacers?" Mara asked as she sidled up next to me giving her sister a bemused look.

"Well, apprentice spacers at any rate. Though the only thing Anakin is missing is the attitude and a blaster."

"Huh, so what brings you to Corellia?"

"Ehh, a few things." I shrugged. "We were playing transport for a family on vacation, our ships originally from the shipyards here, so the Captain decided this was the best place to get a few upgrades. I think he wants to stock up on Brandy too, to sell off a few cases at a time."

Mara snorted and flashed me a grin. "Brandy huh? Well Corellia is known for quality brandy. Does he usually make a habit selling alcohol on the side?"

"Apparently? He's complained at least three times since I joined because Coruscant bought all his stock and it'll take forever to build up a proper variety again."

"Heh, so apprentice spacer? What's that like?"

"... Kind of crazy. Sometimes there's nothing to do, and sometimes it's like John's trying to cram everything he can think of into my head. I spend like, an hour a day minimum running simulations in one of the ship's laser turrets. Then I get random crash courses on everything from bargaining to how to fix a hyperdrive." I glanced away to watch the racers whip by us.

Mara hummed to herself. "Well you picked the right planet to come to for your first stop. We've got a bit of a reputation for our spacers." She shot me a cocky grin.

"Corellia has a lot of reputations."

"Mmm true. Which one are you most interested in?"

"Well…. Hmm that's a tough one. Don't know enough to be excited about the alcohol, and John wants us to avoid the smugglers, something about learning to paddle before throwing us in the water with sharks. Honestly? I want to know more about the Green Jedi."

Mara's eyebrows disappeared into her hairline.

"Most off worlders don't think too hard about them. What piqued your interest?"

"Eh, I was just a little under the threshold to get recruited by the temple on Coruscant, my parents mentioned it when I was a kid and ever since…" I shrugged. John had maid it very clear that we weren't to draw extra attention to his videos. We'd likely all be recognizable faces soon enough but that wasn't any reason to go borrowing trouble according to him.

"Ahh yeah, I get that. Think everyone in the system dreamed about wearing green robes as a kid. What did you want to know about them?"

I smiled and started asking some of the questions I hadn't gotten around to asking John. I wasn't sure if Mara would have all the answers I was looking for, but at least I had her talking now.

{}{}{}{}

The crowds were starting to thin out as we made our way out of the stadium. I had to say, all things considered this had gone off better than I'd expected. Oh, it hadn't really been a _date_ or anything, and they would be going home while we went back to our hotel. But with a little luck…

"I don't suppose you might want to meet up again sometime? We're going to be here a few weeks while the ship gets worked on. Maybe I could buy you dinner?"

Mara almost missed a step. As her head whipped around to look at me. Almost instantly she flushed red. "Ah, oh jeez, I ah, I'm flattered. Really! I'm just, not into girls. Liz, come on, time to go! We've got to get home or Mom will freak!"

Mara grabbed her sister by the wrist and started hustling off into the crowd.

"Wha, Mara let go! We still have time!" I couldn't hear Mara's response but Liz looked upset before shouting to be heard over the crowds. "Bye Anakin! It was nice meeting you!"

"What just happened? I thought things were going great." Anakin asked.

"I, she didn't like girls. But I don't understand. She only had one earring in her left ear! That's how people let you know their interested in their own sex!"

Anakin gave me a weird look. "Really? On Tatooine that was how you let people know you were high up in a gang."

"Wait, what?"

"Dessert planet. Everyone was poor. Having an expensive piece of jewelry on display like that told everyone you were important and had money."

"Oh… so what do you think it means here?"

Anakin only shrugged in response.

"Sorry Anakin. I didn't mean to scare them off."

"... It's ok. Maybe I didn't get a date, but I sort of made a friend." He smiled; it was small but honest. "It was nice, just getting to talk with someone normally. Usually there's this… distance, I guess. People talk to you differently when they know you're a Jedi."

I smiled back. "It was a fun night, wasn't it?"

"Yup!"

I sighed dramatically and stretched my arms over my head. "Ah well, so we didn't find dates this time, we'll have other chances. Ready to call it a night?"

Anakin took a moment to think the question over before nodding. "Yeah, we need to get our sleep schedules on the local time, otherwise this trip is going to really drag on."

"Speaking from experience?"

"Mmm, Master Kenobi and I haven't been on too many missions, but it's always worse if I don't manage to adjust early. There's some meditation tricks that can help."

"Tell me about them?"

"Sure!"

{}{}{}{}

Meeting everyone in the hotel lobby for breakfast the next morning was… Meh. Sure, there was stuff that we needed to discuss and do and all that. And Anakin's meditation tips had helped… But I still hadn't gotten to sleep until one am local time. And being up before nine was just bleagh.

I wanted to sleep till noon damn it!

John waltzed into the little dining area with a smug smirk on his lips and a short brunette on his arm. The girl was grinning warmly and chattering to John about something.

"Good morning everyone. Lyra here will be joining us for breakfast before she has to run. I've got an appointment with the ship yard to keep this morning. Delia, I'd like you along just so you can get a feel for what we're doing, and how big business deals like this work. Anakin, I know you've gotten familiar with at least half the ship's systems by now, so you might as well tag along for another set of eyes on what I have planned." He took a moment to down a half cup of caf. "I also managed to get an appointment with an old acquaintance who I think all of you will be very interested in meeting this afternoon, especially you Obi-Wan."

The woman, Lyra, giggled at the array of surprised faces John's impromptu planning session caused. Obi-Wan looked particularly startled, and a little worried. I was having a harder time wrapping my head around the complete stranger John managed to charm. I glanced at Anakin and we shared incredulous looks. Was it just because they were older that this worked out better for him? Did he just have a lot of practice?

Either way, last night proved that picking up girls was a lot harder in reality than it seemed in books and holovids. And yet somehow John actually made it look easy! Clearly, I had picked the right mentor.


	12. Chapter 12

**AN: Happy Snowstorm everyone! Thanks to impending bad weather my road crew raced home ahead of the storm and I got to work on this earlier than expected. Now, I know you all want a Darksiders POV update. It's coming. The only reason the Jedi caught on so fast is because a youngling was having issues and did a holonet search for tips on using the Force. The Jedi got lucky. Seeing as none of the Darksiders are the kind to care about memes or entertainment for the masses… they are understandably behind the curve. I've got stuff to cover in the meantime but it will happen. Author's promise.**

**Merry Christmas! Happy Holidays! and remember to leave a review if you like the story! **

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"I'm sorry but we don't really have furniture that can fold into the walls like you're asking." Dack, the shipwright handling my modifications apologized. "At least not tightly enough to make the room double as a sparring area. We've got a sort of exercise bench with pulleys that will fold into the wall. That should fit nicely without getting in the way."

"Well, it's not what I had in mind but it's something." I admitted.

The modified ship plans now showed a small kitchen area and four seat rectangular table in place of the port cargo hold. The table would have two chairs on one side and a bench along the wall to the other. All either bolted in place or mag locked to prevent them from shifting around when they shouldn't.

"The sparring area was a bit of a longshot anyway but it'll be nice to have more exercise options than jogging, pushups, and sit-ups."

"Darn it, I want to learn your moves." Delia pouted.

"Worry about learning to handle a blaster first. Then we'll see about getting you to the point you don't stab yourself with a vibroblade."

I neatly sidestepped any mention of lightsabers and the teens gamely followed my lead with only an odd look each. Dack however, got a look in his eye. A sort of quiet interest, though laser focused.

"Vibroblades and Blasters? At what, seventeen?" Delia nodded hesitantly. "And you can't be more than what, fifteen?" Anakin was about a month shy of that but only shrugged in response. "A bit young for weapons training isn't that?" He eyed me carefully.

Frigging Corelians. Always have to poke at things. I leaned back and crossed my arms over my chest.

"If they're going to fly around the galaxy, they need to know how to protect themselves. Otherwise, they're going to get all of us killed the first time some Trandoshan slavers decide a small crew and their ship won't be missed." I shrugged. "Besides, Anakin already has a bit of training from his guardian. Delia needs to catch up."

Dack didn't relax in the slightest.

"So while working on your ship I won't be surprised by any _irregularities_."

Oh, so that's what this was about.

"No, no smuggling compartments. And if Core Sec gets pushy feel free to let them look. I haven't got anything to hide other than a surprisingly dirty bulk entertainment deal. I keep thinking about replacing it, but with the teens on board? I think they might object to losing all that _inspiration._"

Dack relaxed, and then chuckled. He outright laughed as Delia and Anakin started to very vocally deny any knowledge of what may, or may not, be stored in my ship's entertainment system.

"Awful blunt aren't you." The man grinned.

"I can be subtle when I need to." I defended, one hand over my heart in mock offense. "I just don't need to right now."

"Well in that case I suppose all that's left is to talk about prices and timelines." Dack clapped his hands together.

"Umm." Anakin leaned over the datapad showing the blueprints. "What if, what if we removed this wall?" Anakin traced the half circle back wall of what used to be the kitchen. "The wall isn't structural, and the tracks for the elevator can go on either side of the ladders for the turrets." He sketched the other half circle wall that was closer to the cockpit. "But with the wall gone that central space will be wide open when the elevator is on the center level. It should be enough space for sparring."

I poured over the prints, and my own knowledge just to double check Anakin's idea.

"We'll have to be careful using the elevator. Anything over the line is liable to get crunched going up, hmmm but that would work… make it easier to load and unload without having to go through those doors… Paint the edges bright orange so people remember not to leave an arm sticking over the line… Maybe we can get some fold up mats and store them under the bunks…" I nodded to myself. "I like it. Dack?"

"It's unconventional." He shrugged. "But we can make it happen."

I grinned and clapped Anakin on the back.

"Knew bringing you along was a good idea." Glancing over the prints again I decided on one more modification. "And put that exorcise bench here instead." I pointed out a spot along the wall of the newly opened inner ring of the ship. "No reason to put the sweaty exorcise equipment next to the food if we don't have too."

{}{}{}{}

"Captain, who precisely are we meeting with." Obi-Wan asked with far more caution than the situation really warranted. After all we were walking up to a Jedi temple, not a back alley cantina.

"Well… I ended up here on Corellia maybe four years after leaving the order. And when I did, I decided I absolutely needed to meet some of the Jedi here. All I knew back then was that the order on Coruscant called them heretics. I figured, what the hell? I'm a heretic, they're heretics, we'll probably get along great, right?" I shrugged. "Didn't really turn out that way. Experimenting with the Dark Side of the Force was too much heresy for them. But I did hit it off with a senior padawan, and we've kept in touch. I'm hoping I can coax him into doing a recording about his order."

And if that didn't pan out maybe I could at least get him and Obi-Wan talking. A more moderate view, but still one which differed from the teachings he grew up with might be just the thing to finally mellow out the bearded wonder. Or at the very least get him thinking.

"A member of the Corellian Jedi?" Obi-Wan's tone suggested he might prefer meeting a smuggler in a dirty cantina after all.

One of these days I was going to get the man to relax, even if it cost me a full bottle of brandy.

"Mmm, Knight Kalle Staven. He passed his trials a year ago. Last time we talked he and his girlfriend were getting serious."

I didn't have to turn around to know that Anakin and Obi-Wan had just put all their considerable attention on me.

"His girlfriend? The Corellian Order… allows attachments?" Anakin asked with all the nervous hesitation of someone checking if a reactor was about to go critical.

"Oh yes. It's been one of the major sticking points between the Corellian and Coruscant Orders. The other being that the Green Jedi are dedicated to just this one system."

I grinned to myself knowing full well that little detail would sit in the back of Anakin's mind like a primed thermal detonator. It wouldn't matter too much now when the best he could hope for was a couple dates before we needed to move on. But if someday he found himself on a long assignment and got _attached_? I'd always assumed my videos would be my only method of messing with the Jedi, but corrupting Anakin in person was just a wealth of yet to be explored opportunities. Puberty certainly had him interested in what might be. And while he hadn't joined Delia in the candle meditation, I'd caught him watching carefully whenever she practiced.

The kid was thinking. Poking at everything I said and everything the order had taught him. Hell, he was watching Delia like a hawk. Looking for cues on how to deal with regular people. I might not have anything to teach him about politics or philosophy, but he was getting a look at another kind of life. And he wasn't hating what he saw. Would he go back and tell his peers? Would he decide this sort of life was what he wanted? Would he decide to forge some new path all his own? Maybe he would try to change the order to match his desires and opinions? And would Obi-Wan, who clearly cared about the kid, follow him?

It would be hard for them. And I felt a little crummy about that. But they were good people, and they deserved to have all the information available to them. Maybe they would surprise me and decide the Jedi had the right idea all along. But at least if that happened, they would make that decision knowing about the alternatives, first hand.

Besides, it wasn't just about them. The whole galaxy was potentially my audience, and probably even future generations! I couldn't half ass these videos. People needed to know what they were getting into. They needed to know what _worked. _And despite what Coruscant might say the Corilian order worked just fine.

"John!"

"Kalle!" I took the remaining steps two at a time and pulled the green robbed menace into a hug.

He thumped me on the back then pulled back to look me over at arm's length.

"You crazy son of a gundark! I know you'd mentioned the idea to me in passing, but to actually do it!" He hissed with a sort of resigned admiration. "You're lucky I'm the only one who knows or they might not have let you land!"

"You checked the link?" I grinned wide and proud.

Kalle sighed at my brushing off his warning.

"Yes. I checked the Sith be damned link. Corrina and I watched every video." He gave me a small smile. "She's determined to practice Matukai until she can feel the Force as well as I can. It never mattered to me, but she's always felt that not being Force sensitive was something that stood between is. She's thrilled."

I winced even though Kalle was smiling.

"I'm sorry if I'd known… I'd have sent her instructions when I first learned if I'd known that."

"It's fine. You couldn't have known, and it's helping now."

I shook my head and grinned back.

"Well, you'd better practice with her. It'll be good bonding. You won't get the same kind of returns she will as far as your connection to the Force goes, but if you don't practice, she might just ride you to exhaustion in a year or two.

Kalle blushed and slugged me in the arm. For all that the Corellian order was open to relationships they still tended to be rather private about them. Which was fine. It just made them easy to tease.

Shaking my head, I gestured behind myself.

"Kalle I'd like you to meet my crew. My student Delia Dharam." She waved brightly. "And my tagalongs from the temple on Coruscant; Knight Obi-Wan Kenobi, and his Padawan Anakin Skywalker."

The two knights eyed each other with a warry sort of respect. Anakin by contrast seemed more curious than anything else. And Delia… was bouncing in place.

Wonderful.

Alright, not wonderful, but probably the best I was going to get.

"John… why in the Sith hells do you have Coruscant Jedi tagging along with you?"

I shrugged.

"Ehh, some little shit from the temple decided to search the holonet for Force tips and found my videos. Kind of cool that I'm helping the next generation version of me find their feet. Assuming the temple doesn't block my videos… Meh, they're Jedi younglings. There's sure to be at least one curious slicer that'll just see that as a challenge."

Given how Delia found me, and some things she'd said? That was probably a safe bet.

"John, focus, what does that have to do with you having tagalongs?"

"The Order sent them to investigate me? Couldn't charge me with anything, but you know I dabble in the Dark Side and they wanted to observe for signs I've gone off the deep end. Then the Force started pushing to let them come. The kids a damn good mechanic and pilot, and with the videos out there drawing attention, I really do need someone manning the guns, so…" I spread my arms and grinned sheepishly.

"... You have the strangest luck sometimes, John." Kalle shook his head before gesturing for us all to follow him away from the temple entrance. "Come on, I've checked out a speeder and I know a nice place where we can have lunch, and discuss whatever insanity you plan to draw me into this time."

"Oi, it's not like all the stuff we got into was my fault! The gambling hall was your idea, and Corinna dragged the both of us into that mess with smugglers!"

That girl was as much a trouble magnet as any Force user. I wouldn't be at all surprised to find out she was like Delia. Force sensitive, but not quite strong enough to get recruited.

"Where is she anyway? I would have expected her to be here for this."

"Couldn't get out of work on such short notice, but I'm sure she'll hunt you down to catch up in person before you leave. And don't change the subject! The smugglers and the gambling hall might not have been your fault, but you're the idiot that dragged us through three bars and a strip club to dodge CorSec!"

"Hey it worked didn't it?!"

"And the next day you admitted we lost them after the first bar!"

OK, point, but it was a lot of fun. Besides, I'd have never gotten them into the strip club without three stops worth of alcohol in them.

"I need to hear this story." Delia's declared from my right. "Why have I not heard this story before?"

"Because I've known you for not even three weeks." I gently pushed the girl an arm length away as she invaded my personal space. "And I haven't had any reason to tell you my entire life story."

"Teeeellll meeeeeeee!"

"Later. Better yet, ask Corinna whenever she tracks us down. She'll enjoy the chance to gossip." My piece said I claimed the front passenger seat.

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I dug into my sandwich with a satisfied grin. Kalle always did have a way of finding the best little hole in the wall restaurants.

"Alright so let me see if I've got this straight. You want me to do an interview, or really just a lecture on the basics of the Corellian Jedi order?"

"That, and or a debate between you and Obi-Wan. Ideally I'd like to hold off until he records a video I can actually post." I hitched my thumb at Obi-Wan. "You know I like your Order more than his, but when most of the galaxy thinks about Jedi, they don't even know you exist."

"I meant to speak with you about that actually." Obi-Wan took a sip of his drink before continuing. "Master Yoda expressed some interest in recording a video explaining the Order and sending it to you, after I explained your rejection of my first attempt."

_Yoda,_ wanted to record a video for my audience? That could go… any number of ways really. Part of me wanted to reject that out of hand. I didn't want the galaxy to see the Jedi in the best possible light. I wanted them to see the order I knew. The order which was flawed, and restricted, and afraid to experiment or grow. But that wouldn't be fair. Not to my audience. They needed to know what was out here. If the Jedi order really was the best option? Well, then they might just see a number of adults petitioning to join in the coming years. And If they weren't? There was a reason I wanted Kalle to record a video for me. I liked the Green Jedi, even if they didn't like me. I wanted to give my students the best foundation possible for them to build on, and for an organization of Force adepts, the Green Jedi were the best foundation I'd found so far.

I was just going to have to trust that the rest of the galaxy would agree with me. Even if the silver tongued, green midget managed to make the sales pitch of a lifetime.

"Ok. If it's a video that actually explains the order, fine." I took a vicious bite of my food and got dubious looks from all corners. "What? I'm not going to say no to that kind of credibility boost." I deflected. "No one can say my videos are a scam if Yoda records one."

And maybe if I kept telling myself that I'd be able to ignore the fact I was giving the head of an organization I wanted to change an open venue to convince the galaxy of his way of thinking.

"You want me to compete against the Jedi Grand Master in a contest for the hearts and minds of the galaxy?" The 'are you stupid?' at the end of Kalle's question went unspoken.

I shrugged. "I didn't before now. But I think you're more relatable, and you don't have a speech impediment."

Anakin choked on his drink.

"Master Yoda does not have a speech impediment." Obi-Wan interjected flatly.

"Then what would you call it?" I countered.

"... A charming quirk? He is over nine hundred years old. He's allowed to be a bit eccentric." Obi-Wan finished with a huff.

"Whatever. What do you think Kalle? You up for it?"

"I, maybe. I really think it would be better coming from one of the Masters. But I doubt they'd even consider it… well, not until this has spread a lot farther." Kalle grimaced. "You're really going to turn the galaxy on its head. You do know that right? Not just Coruscant. We're going to be flooded with kids and teens dreaming of wearing green robes. Hell, if this picks up enough steam, we might need to get rolled into CoreSec more formally just to stay funded."

"It'll take years. Probably decades." I answered softly. "Delia was almost strong enough to be recruited, and it took her a few months to get a feel for the Force, and it's still shaky. Real skill, the kind it takes to be a Knight? That's not going to happen overnight."

"Twenty years or two hundred. Change is coming, and we'll have to be ready." Kalle sighed and leaned back in his chair. "I could almost hate you for this, John. I know you haven't fallen, but what you're doing… That belief that the galaxy should work differently, that willingness to act on it… That's almost Sith like."

I looked away. My half empty plate was suddenly rather interesting.

"That's not fair!" Delia bit out. "I can feel the Force thanks to John! I've wanted this since I was six! And it's even better than I'd ever imagined! And I won't be the only one from Mirial who feels that way, never mind the rest of the galaxy!"

With a snort I reached over and tousled her hair.

"Hey! Not cool! I'm seventeen, not seven!"

"Eh, you're short enough that it's tempting."

"Screw you!"

I looked back at Kalle who was grinning wryly. "Well, I suppose your student has a point. Corrina is certainly thankful. And I can't be too upset about anything that makes her happy."

"Bastard, I had enough sleepless nights fighting with myself over doing this already. I don't need more from my friends."

"You've learned to think through your crazy stunts beforehand? Truly the galaxy is doomed."

"Sooooo, what do you say? You up for one more crazy stunt for old times' sake?"

"...Oh, what the hell. But only if Corrina gets to help me. And not until I see this video Yoda does."

"Deal." I grinned brightly.

"Won't this cause you problems within your order?" Obi-Wan asked.

"Probably, but if I wait until Yoda has done one their biggest realistic complaint will be that I didn't pass the offer up to one of our Masters." Kalle shrugged. "If the Coruscant order is going to try and sway the Galaxy to their way of thinking… well, there is a fair bit of bad blood between us. A chance to prove our teachings are superior? It'd almost be a crime to pass that up."

"Why do I feel as if every time I turn around there is another ideology that dislikes me for what I am?" Obi-Wan scowled at Kalle and I. "This isn't going to become a trend is it?"

"Well… I've never been crazy enough to go to Dothomir. We could go and ask the witches what they think if you want to run for our lives after?"

"Very amusing, Captain."

"And now the formality is back, wonderful."

"Amusing as this is," Kalle interrupted, "I need to get back soon. I'll get in touch when I have more time."

Nodding I stood and pulled him into a quick hug.

"I'm looking forward to it, but before you go, know anywhere good to shop for blasters?"

{}{}{}{}

Reaching out I slapped Delia's hand before she could start fiddling with the grip of her new blaster. Again.

"Knock it off. That's a weapon, not a toy. You'll treat it like one, or I'll take it away."

"Sorry." She muttered. "It's just… I've never owned a weapon before." She twitched in place. "It just. It feels weird." She muttered as she absently patted her blaster in it's holster under her left armpit. "Like, it's comfortable, and light, and it just shouldn't be!"

With a sigh I scrubbed a hand through my hair.

Anakin and Obi-Wan didn't seem to appreciate me forcing them to carry blasters, but at least they weren't acting twitchy about it. They understood the need to look their part, but they were married to their sabers.

Delia though was having a severe case of nerves. The world had always been safe from behind her screen, and now she had a weapon and the expectation she might need it eventually.

It wasn't sitting well.

"...Come on. We'll do some meditation with it on you. Maybe that'll help relax you. But if you're going to get like this, you're not allowed to carry it unless I'm with you. We'll go back to the range tomorrow and put in some more time in with it too. The sooner you're used to it the better."

"But still, John, it's a _blaster." _

And two weeks ago she'd been excited about getting one…

"And that's why you have to stop fingering the damn thing." I answered seriously. "You only touch that thing in public if a firefight breaks out, got me? I know it takes some getting used to. But we're trying to avoid that kind of trouble. Every spacer needs a blaster because things can go to shit. But I'm no smuggler, and you and your pals are keeping anyone looking for us guessing. With a bit of luck, you won't even need it."

She would need it, eventually. But hopefully not anytime soon.

"Come on, I've got the candles in my room."

"Yeah, yeah ok. Later, Anakin. Bye Obi-Wan."

I tossed a wave over my shoulder at the Jedi as I led Delia away. Once the door was closed and the candles lit between us, I led her through the meditations again. She was getting better at it, slowly but steadily. Mostly she was just keeping the amount of power she used more consistent now.

"Are you sure this is the life you want?"

Her candle flame spiked into a very twitchy light yellow.

"Breath, Delia. Let it go, center yourself in the Light."

It took her almost a full minute this time, but she managed.

"Why do you keep asking me things like that?" She sounded a touch bitter and her candle fluctuated giving proof that her emotions were bleeding over where they shouldn't, but it wasn't too severe. She was getting there.

"Because this life isn't for everyone. Some people take to it like they were born for it. Some don't, but get along well enough. And some people just can't deal with it for very long. We're always on the move, cramped up for days or weeks at a time, and yes there are occasionally fights."

The candle spiked with Delia's anxiety at the mention of fights.

"I try to avoid those. I usually do a pretty good job of it too, but the Force… I've told you it makes us trouble magnets. I'm not throwing you out, or trying to scare you off. I just want you to know if it ever gets to be too much, I'll get you home."

Her candle twitched and spasmed through emotions rapidly for a full minute before finally settling back to the steady low burn of the Light Side of the Force.

"Thank you."

I smiled back at my student.

"Now, take a deep breath and reach out with a positive emotion. We have plenty of time to practice so we might as well use it."

And that was how we passed the evening.


End file.
